Free Cassidy Harte and the Comeback Kid by RaeAnne Thayne

little life truth for you, Slater. One I learned the hard way. We don’t always get what we want.”
    A muscle in his jaw flexed. “What would you think if I told you Lowry is one of the reasons I left town?”
    She eyed him skeptically. “If I believed you—which I absolutely don’t—I would probably think I should just run over to the Rendezvous right this minute and give Wade a big, sloppy, wet kiss for doing me the biggest favor of my life.”
    His face went completely still, and she thought she saw a glimmer of hurt in his gold-green eyes. For one terrible moment she had to fight the urge to apologize to him. As if she had anything to be sorry about in this whole awful mess!
    â€œStay away from him,” Zack finally growled. “I don’t trust the man. You shouldn’t, either.”
    He turned on his heels and walked out of her office, taking with him any soft feelings toward him she might have been crazy enough to entertain for even a second.
    Furious with the blasted man and with herself for being such an idiot about him, she picked up the paperweight shaped like a chef’s hat that Lucy had given her for Christmas. With all the strength and technique Alvin Jeppson had tried to drum into her head through those years of coaching, she threw it as hard as she could at the door frame where Slater had just been leaning.
    It bounced off with a loud thud, leaving a big, ugly nick in the wood, then clattered to the floor.
    She’d chipped it, she saw when she went to pick it up. Just a little on one side, barely noticeable, but still, tears pricked behind her eyelids. She blinked them back. She refused to cry over a silly little paperweight, even though it had been a gift from her beloved niece.
    And, damn it, she wouldn’t cry for Zack Slater, either.
    Â 
    He had no business here.
    In Star Valley, at the Lost Creek, and especially not camped out on the front porch of Cassie’s cabin. The porch swing chains rattled as he shifted position, watching moonlight gleam like mother-of-pearl across the gravel pathway leading to the main lodge.
    Why wasn’t she home? The dining room had closed more than an hour ago and all the guests at the ranch were either taking an evening ride around the lake or playing board games at the main lodge or relaxing in their cabins.
    So where was Cassie? If these were the kind of hours she kept, he was going to have to do something about it. It wasn’t healthy, physically or mentally, no matter how much she loved her work.
    He heard his own thoughts and grimaced at the irony. He was a fine one to talk. He’d spent just about every moment of the past ten years pouring his blood and sweat and soul into Maverick, trying to make it a success.
    The magnitude of what he had accomplished still sometimes made him sit back in wonder. The kid of a dirt-poor drunk had no business wheeling and dealing with the big boys.
    While he listened to the night seethe and stir around him, he thought of the strange, twisting journey that had begun when he left Salt River a decade earlier. He had wandered aimlessly for a while, then had joined up on the rodeo circuit, looking for a bit of quick cash.
    Amazingly enough, right out of the gate he’d won a couple of fairly decent bronc busting purses, fueled more by reckless despair than any real skill on his part. He wasn’t aware of any kind of conscious plan at the time, but some instinct had led him to him plow the money into investments that had paid off.
    He had turned around and invested those dividends again, then again and again, hitting big on just about everything he turned his hand to. Much to his surprise, he discovered he had an uncanny knack for predicting market trends. Through that knack, a lot of hard work and a few mistakes along the way, he had built Maverick into a huge, highly successful company.
    By all rights, he should be deliriously happy. He had just about everything a man