Free 0373659458 (R) by Karen Templeton Page A

way.”
    “And the other?”
    Her gaze shifted to his. “Speaking of looking out for each other.”
    Josh shrugged. “Long ingrained habit. Whether any of us want to be looked out for or not.”
    And sometimes, she decided, lying really was the best option. Because to admit the truth would only go to prove it wasn’t only her legs that weren’t working properly. “Your brother is obviously a nice guy, and it hurts me to see someone else hurting,” she said, echoing what she’d said to her mother. “But I won’t pry, I promise.”
    “And that’s really all there is to it?”
    “Yes.” No . But the more details she went into—that she was only there part-time and would return to Los Angeles, that she was in no position to embark on a relationship herself—the more likely she’d sound as though she was protesting too much. Never mind that both things were true. And of course there was the indisputable fact that her wheelchair was a huge turnoff for some men. Okay, a lot of men. For her, it was freeing. There were few places she couldn’t go, far fewer things she couldn’t do than people might realize, even if she did them differently. But an awful lot of people only saw her as somebody who couldn’t walk, as though that was the main thing that defined her.
    Still, there was the also indisputable fact that the man stirred something inside her that went way beyond her severe hanky-panky deprivation. Something that took her out of herself, made her...want to do more. Be more. But to say this was a nonstarter didn’t even begin to cover it.
    And the look Zach’s brother was giving her right now told her he wasn’t buying it for a minute. Especially when he said, “That’s too bad. Because I think you’d be real good for him.”
    “Ex cuse me?”
    Josh laughed, then nodded toward the nearest barn, a modern number, all mental and clean lines. Nothing like the much, much older—and far more charming—huge wooden structure she’d noticed on her way up to the main house. “If you need tack for the horse, his previous owners gave us what they used for him, and you’re welcome to it. But you might want to see it first, decide if you’d rather get something new for your boy...”
    At least this stuff she knew, Mallory thought a few minutes later as she inspected the hardly worn saddle, the bit and bridle and blankets that were part of Waffles’s “dowry.” This stuff, she could make decisions about.
    The rest of it? The important stuff? Thirty-eight years, she’d been doing this, and she still knew bupkiss.
    Especially about why in the hell she’d find herself interested in the last man on earth who’d be interested back.
    * * *
    Some days, Zach mused as he ushered his very wiggly progeny into a booth at Annie’s, being a responsible adult was beyond him. As in, the kind of adult who actually cares about what his kids are shoving in their faces. Only after the morning he’d had—which had started at o-dark-thirty hauling ass out to Ed Jenkins’s place to help his mare deliver a breech foal—he was doing well to feed the kids at all. Heck, remember he had kids.
    “Hey, there, Zach. Boys.” Val Lopez, Levi’s fiancée, appeared at their booth, order pad at the ready and a smile on her face that put the sun to shame. In the early afternoon light streaming through the street-facing window, her long, wavy ponytail was the color of corn silk. “What’ll it be? Wait, let me guess,” she said, setting a pair of kids’ paper place mats in front of the boys, a small round diamond flashing on her left hand. “Regular burger and fries for this one,” she said, tapping a giggling Jeremy on the head, “chicken fingers for cutie-pie there, and a deluxe cheeseburger with double fries for you. Am I right?”
    “Are we really that predictable? Liam—no, buddy.” The baby was on his knees, the ketchup bottle already upside down over the place mat.
    Grinning, Val shoved the pad in her apron to calmly