Hands shaking, Whitney took a dish towel from a kitchen drawer and moved to the refrigerator. The twins still slept, unaware, thank the Lord, of the drama in the barn.

Nate stood in the kitchen doorway, glowering like a mad bull about to charge. She wasn’t sure if he was mad at her or mad at the kissing creep.

If Nate hadn’t arrived when he had…A shudder earthquaked down her spine at the memory. Of the lecherous cowboy, of begin trapped, of feeling helpless.

“I guess I asked for that,” she murmured.

“What are you talking about?” His words were more barked than spoken.

“The sign at the feed store.”

His scowl only deepened. “Don’t be stupid.”

Stupid. That sounded about right. Stupid and, in this moment, more grateful than she knew how to express.

In all her adult life, Whitney had never had anyone come to her rescue. She couldn’t decide if she loved the feeling or hated it. She didn’t want to be needy. After learning the hard way not to depend on a man, she was determined to stand on her own two feet. The incident in the barn only cemented the lessons she’d learned in the last few years—her own two feet weren’t always sturdy enough.

“I don’t think I’ve said thank you.” Her voice sounded as wimpy and watery as she felt.

He crossed the room and took the towel from her hands—hands that wouldn’t stop trembling—and growled, “Sit down before you fall down.”

She stiffened. “I’m fine.”

“Duly noted, but I can make an ice pack. Had plenty of opportunities working on a ranch.” Nate put a strong hand on her shoulder and guided her to the chair. With a gentle push, he set her down. Having something solid under her wobbly knees felt good. He was right. Any second now, she might have slithered to the floor like a limp noodle. But giving in to the fear and vulnerability was akin to giving up, and she couldn’t do either. Not with two babies to support.

A noise had her swiveling her head toward the hallway. “I think the twins are waking.”

His back turned, Nate glanced at her over one very broad shoulder. “Take care of you first. They sound okay. You’re not.”

He was right about that, even though she didn’t want to admit it.

From the back room, one of the twins, Olivia, she thought, jabbered to the other. Sophia was probably still napping, but knowing her dominant daughter, Olivia would have her sister awake in seconds.

Nate filled the towel with ice cubes, then pressed the compress gently against her face and lip. He hunkered down beside her, eye to eye. His were filled with compassion. Not anger at her stupidity. Compassion.

Something inside Whitney melted. Relieved tears pushed at the back of her eyeballs. Nate was upset for her, not at her. He wasn’t mad.

She didn’t know why his opinion mattered so much, but it did.

For several beats, the cowboy studied her face while her heart did funny jumping jacks. She could feel him breathe, see the golden marbling in his brown eyes.

Slowly, relief gave way to attraction.

At least for her. Maybe for him. It had been so long since she’d even considered a man’s appeal, she wasn’t sure.

This was ridiculous. Foolish. Dangerous. She needed a ranch hand, not a boyfriend. But oh my, he was one sweet cowboy.

Almost tenderly, he stroked the back of his hand over her hair and double tapped a knuckle beneath her chin. A friendly, keep your chin-up reminder, not a come on, and entirely different from the other cowboy’s invasion of her personal space.

She was tempted to lean into his sturdy, comforting strength. She didn’t, of course. Couldn’t. Giving in to moments of weakness had been her downfall.

When she thought she might lean anyway, if only for a minute, he took her hand, pressed it onto the ice pack and then disappeared down the narrow hall, leaving her to examine the troubling emotions Nate Caldwell stirred inside her.

Nate was a salt-of-the-earth kind of man people lauded as solid and dependable and good at heart. It had been so long since she’d allowed a man to penetrate her thoughts, she didn’t trust her judgment. She barely knew him, but that didn’t stop her from wondering why his wife had left him. Why any woman wouldn’t want Nate Caldwell.

From the nursery, she heard baby talk mixed with Nate’s deep rumble. The twins giggled, and the cowboy’s soft chuckle responded. Whitney stilled, straining to listen to the sweet, sweet sound. Baby laughter was the music of heaven.

Melting ice slid down her cheek and plopped fat drops onto her blouse. She refolded the towel and pressed it back into place as she pondered her neighbor. Was he God sent? Or was her neediness overshadowing her common sense?

“Incoming princess times two!” Boots thudded against wood floors as a smiling Nate re-entered the kitchen with a sleepy-eyed toddler in each powerful arm.

Sophia dug a tiny fist against one eye and yawned.

Olivia, pony-tails askew, patted Nate’s chest and demanded, “Dink. Dink.”

He shot a helpless look at Whitney. “I don’t speak toddler too well.”

“She wants her sippy cup.” Whitney rose and took two plastic training cups from the cabinet. “It’s our after nap routine. Sippy cup, fresh diaper, and then a little snack.”

He grimaced. “I thought they felt a little damp.”

While she smiled at his reaction, Nate settled in a chair and let the twins wiggle to the floor. Whitney handed over the cups, and each baby balanced a tiny hand on one of Nate’s knees while gulping water. He rested a big, rough rancher’s hand on each teeny shoulder, steadying them.

The picture stabbed Whitney right in the chest. They’d had no man, other than strangers in supermarkets, give them any attention. They were mesmerized by the cowboy.

If she wasn’t careful, she’d be feeling the same.

Bright and early the next morning, Whitney rose with the chickens. Literally. Every day at dawn, while gray shadows embraced the land and most humans still dozed, a red speckled rooster, a Polish, according to Sally’s haphazard notes, with a wild feathered hair-do, stood on top of the chicken house and crowed as if he weighed five hundred pounds instead of two. And every morning, Whitney contemplated chicken soup.

This pink-and-gold sunrise, however, she was on a mission to be organized and ready for action when Nate arrived. As bad as yesterday had been, Nate had made it made better when he’d agreed to be her teacher. She didn’t know why he’d changed his mind. Must have been pity. He didn’t appear to like being around her that much, but whatever his reasons, she’d slept better last night knowing Nate would be stopping by on a regular basis. Now maybe she had a realistic shot at making a long-term success of her inheritance.

His offer to help had come with such reservation on his part that she’d expected him to jump in that big four-wheel-drive truck and spew dust all over her house as he made his escape. He hadn’t though. Stetson in hand, he’d let her use his cell to call the feed store and have the troublesome note taken down. Then, he’d promised to teach her “the ropes” of basic ranching and animal care. And if she’d groveled and simpered in gratitude, she wasn’t sorry. She needed him.

Even though ranching was scary and about as far out of her comfort zone as hiking the Himalayas with a polar bear, this was her best chance at making a good life for her little family. Her last chance. If she failed, the future looked too grim to think about.

She would learn, work hard, succeed. She had to.

Dressed and fueled with coffee and yogurt, she peeked at the girls one last time and, satisfied they’d sleep another hour, headed outside to water the stock. She’d read through one of Sally’s notebooks last night, not that it had helped much. Sally had her own brand of undecipherable shorthand.

By the time the twins awoke and Whitney went inside to prepare their breakfast, Nate still had not arrived.

“Maybe he changed his mind.” The thought depressed her. Apparently, Olivia wasn’t thrilled either because she was fussy this morning, hanging on Whitney’s leg and whining.

Whitney handed her a piece of banana while she finished scrambling eggs. That seemed to do the trick for now.

After breakfast and dressing the twins, Nate still hadn’t arrived, so she headed back outside. The girls followed like baby ducks in their yellow shirts and black yoga pants.

Having them near the animals while she worked worried her, but what choice did she have? She had no playpen, and even if she did, the girls would crawl right over the top. Olivia was a champion at that little game, and Sophia was only too happy to follow her sister’s lead.

Whitney looked around the barnyard for a safe place for them and found none.

“Babies and running a ranch don’t mix.” When both girls looked up at her with heart-melting brown eyes, she went to her knees for a hug. They smelled good, like baby lotion and bananas. Olivia was over her snit. Mild-tempered Sophia babbled something about puppies, her name for every animal on the place.

By ten o’clock, she’d given up on Nate. The goats were baaing at her from their tightly structured fence, insisting on…something. One hairy little nanny tried her best to twist her head through a small opening in the wire panel. Funny little animals. Cute, too. She could get used to goats.

With the girls toddling at her side, Whitney carried a bucket of grain to the gate. Metal clanged as she stepped inside the pen. At the noise, all six goats fled in terror. Four nannies collapsed in a heap as if she’d shot them.

They’d done the same thing yesterday. At first she hadn’t worried too much. What did she know about goats? But two days in a row? Something had to be wrong. What if they all died? What if these cute, silly creatures caused her to lose this ranch?

Panic shot through her veins. “Get up, goats. Get up.”

She ran to help as each one struggled to her feet. When she approached, shooing them like chickens in her effort to encourage, they tipped over again, legs straight out as if rigor mortis had already set in.

Hand to her mouth, she watched in horror as the animals finally recovered and staggered to a wobbly stand. “They’re sick. They’re dying. I’ve fed them the wrong thing, and they’re all going to die.”

She stared down into the bucket of feed, reluctant to give them more. The grain looked okay. She sniffed it. It smelled okay, too. The bucketful was fresh from the bags Matt Hammond had delivered a couple of days ago.

Could that be the problem? Had Matt unintentionally sold her a batch of bad feed? Poisoned feed? Hadn’t she seen that once on a horse movie? Moldy feed could kill a horse. Maybe it killed goats, too. Was this moldy?

The daddy goat crowded in as if to butt her. She stomped her foot to shoo him away…and to her horror, he collapsed in a cloud of dust at her feet.

That awful feeling of failure swamped her, drowning her again.

“I’ve got to find a vet.” In a panic, she grabbed the twins and hurried toward the house for her car keys at the exact moment Nate’s big truck wheeled into the drive. “Thank you, Lord!”

Leaving the babies with their toys on the front porch where she could see them, she spun and raced down the driveway, leaping over potholes. “Nate. Nate!”

Nate slammed out of his truck and swung in a three-sixty, searching the surroundings as if he was some sort of solider on a mission. “What’s wrong? L.T.? Is he back?”

Whitney skidded to a stop in front of him, panting like a puppy. “The goats. They’re dying.”

“Dying?” One look at her face must have convinced him she was serious. With long, confident strides, Nate hustled to the goat pens and went inside. Whitney followed.

“They look okay to me.” He stood, hands on hips, studying the small herd. The word good-looking flickered behind her eyelids at least ten times, like a flashing neon sign. Boots wide, hat low, a real cowboy. Strong, a little sexy, a lot manly.

She had to tear her gaze away to think straight. The topic was dying goats not her completely inappropriate responses to the rancher.

“One minute they’re okay and the next they collapse.” She started toward the nearest goat, patting her hands in what she thought would be an encouraging greeting. The little nanny bolted away, short tail aflutter.

After three steps, the animal fell over in a dead faint. Legs stiff and straight. Pot belly pooching out.

Whitney fought back a cry. “See? Something is terribly wrong. Do you think I bought bad feed? Maybe they ate something poison. Call your vet. Do something. I can’t lose these goats.”

Whitney realized then that Nate had gone strangely quiet. A bad, bad sign. He leaned against the panel fence, head down, hat tipped even lower to cover his face. He didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news.

“I’ve killed them, haven’t I? Go ahead and tell me the truth. I can handle it.”A lie, of course. She could not handle losing the home her daughters needed.

A goat baa-ed. A cow mooed, and the chickens fluttered and clucked. Inside the barn, Clive, the runaway stallion, hollered at the top of his tiny lungs, sure he was starving to death in a stall filled with hay.

Whitney wanted to holler too. Life kept lifting her up to punch her face and knock her back down.

“Nate?”

He looked at her then, and she realized he wasn’t in despair. He was trying not to laugh! His shoulders shook with contained mirth.

She stiffened like the legs of her dying goats. “This is not a laughing matter. Not unless you’re trying to run me out of business.”

The thought took root. Nate didn’t approve of her miniature critters. He didn’t consider them real livestock. And her land did back up to his. Maybe he’d like to see her fail.

No, that didn’t make sense. He’d offered his help. He’d rescued her from that cowboy cretin, and he was tender with the twins. Tender with her, too, if she’d admit it.

The telltale quiver around his mouth said Nate was not the least insulted by her accusation.

“Whitney, come here.” He dumped the feed into a trough, flipped the empty bucket upside down, and patted the bottom. “Sit. Lesson one.”

She shot a glance toward the porch. Side by side like matching dolls, the twins happily pushed a pink shopping cart loaded with toys around the flat wooden surface. Confident they were safe, she perched on the bucket.

The billy goat butted at Nate’s back. The cowboy gave the animal a push and stomped his boot. Billy fell over dead. At least, he looked dead to Whitney.

“Shouldn’t we call a vet?”

“I’m the closest thing to a vet you’ll find around Calypso.”

He was? “Then what is wrong with my goats?”

“Nothing.” He hunkered down on the toes of his boots next to her bucket and picked up a piece of straw.

“Nothing? But they pass out, and their legs stiffen like road kill.”

“Goats come in more than one variety. Yours are fainting goats.”

“Fainting goats? You’re joking.” His mildly amused expression said he wasn’t. Whitney leaned away, incredulous. “No way? They do this on purpose?”

“I don’t know about purpose, but they’re born this way. The fancy word for it is myotonic. When they’re startled or excited, their muscles stiffen, and they collapse for a few seconds. Then they hop up and everything’s fine.”

“Fainting goats?”

Nate grinned. “Yep.”

Whitney slapped a hand on top of her head and laughed.

“Fainting goats.” She couldn’t believe it. She hadn’t killed them. They weren’t poisoned. They were just doing what fainting goats are supposed to do.

To prove to herself that Nate was right, she stomped her foot. And Billy collapsed again. She giggled. “They’re not hurt or sick?”

“Not at all. They’re normal fainting goats.”

The idea that there was anything normal about a goat that fainted was so ridiculous and such an incredible relief, Whitney began to laugh. And that made Nate laugh. Pretty soon, their laughter rang out over the animals’ pens louder than any rooster crow or donkey bray.

He pointed the straw at her. “You thought they were dying.”

Hand against her giggling mouth, she nodded. “I did!”

Nate laughed so hard, he lost his balance and tumped backwards into the dirt. When he yelped, six goats fell over in a faint.

Whitney hooped with laughter, pointing at him as tears flowed from her eyes. Tears of relief. Tears of pure mirth such as she hadn’t enjoyed in months and months. Maybe years.

Hat off, brown hair glinting shades of gold and honey in the morning sun, and face crinkled in delight, Nate reached out and tugged at her arm, pushing the bucket with his foot. “If we’re all fainting—”

In the next instant, Whitney was sitting in the dirt next to the broad-shouldered cowboy. At the clatter of noise, every single goat went down in a faint. And the whooping laughter commenced all over again.

When they finally got themselves under control and the goats were back up and hopping around the pen on stiff legs, tails happily aflutter, Nate rose and pulled her up with him. They stood facing each other, not too close but closer than virtual strangers usually do, and simply grinned.

Something warm and pleasant splashed in the center of Whitney’s heart, in that place she’d closed off over three years ago.

Dust and country air and the smell of barnyard swirled in the atmosphere right along with camaraderie and laughter. She smiled, tremulously, grateful for a man who could make her laugh and forget her troubles even for a few minutes.

She glanced toward the house.

Nate followed her gaze, dusting his hat back and forth across his jean-clad thigh. “The twins are still playing, safe and happy. I’ve been watching.”

There he went again. This man took neighborly to whole new level. During and since the awful time with her ex, the nearest thing to a good neighbor she’d had was the landlord who’d helped her pack the Subaru after she’d been evicted.

Nate started toward the gate and then stopped, one hand on the latch. “Before I forget…”He removed a small cell phone from a pearl-snapped shirt pocket and held it out.

“What’s this?”

“A cell phone.”

“I know that. I’m not that dumb.”

“You’re not dumb at all, but you are a woman alone.” When she began to shake her head, he said, “Don’t get your back up. You need a phone.”

“You bought me a phone?”

“We had an extra lying around for the hands. A ranch phone. Text and talk only. Not that expensive. Take it.”

Was he telling the truth or offering charity? “I can’t accept this. I can’t—“

His look could quell a charging elephant. “Look, consider it a loaner until you get your own. You’re doing me a favor. Otherwise, I won’t sleep at night wondering what idiot you’ve let in your barn.”

The reminder put starch in her spine. And here she’d been having sugary thoughts about him. “Thank you for throwing that in my face.”

He huffed. “Just take the phone, okay? If not for your own safety, for theirs.” He shot a pointed look toward the twins.

That was her undoing. Anything for her babies. He was right, after all, though pushy for insisting. She was being proud and stubborn, and she knew very well that pride led to a fall hard enough to break a bone. She couldn’t afford to tumble any farther. The next time would kill her.

She held out her hand. “I’ll pay the bill.”

Nate crammed his hat back onto this head. “Fine.”

He shoved the gate open and held it for her pass through. The laughter was gone, and she realized she’d caused the rift, maybe hurt his feelings.

The rest of their time together was not nearly as much fun.