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eBook Category: Romance
eBook Description: Cassandra Phillippa Morrison is on the run--again. Her Porsche is dead at the side of a dirt road, she's lost, her feet hurt, and she's still dressed in the silk gown in which she'd escaped New York. Feeling betrayed, she simply wants to hide out at her grandfather's ranch for a while. Hopefully, her father, millionaire tycoon Richard Andrews Morrison, won't retrieve her as easily as he has in the past. Brice Logan has never run away from a problem in his life and just because he's inherited a foster family of three kids is no reason to start now. He's perfectly capable of fostering the kids alone, but since two of them are girls, the Ministry of Social Services will close the home unless he finds a suitable female care giver. He knows he needs a woman to stay for the long haul, not flit off whenever circumstances get tough. And women like that don't just drop into the middle of a Saskatchewan prairie with every other dawn.

eBook Publisher: The Fiction Works, Published: 1999
Fictionwise Release Date: May 2006

25 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [169 KB] , ePub (EPUB) [164 KB] , Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [137 KB] , Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [891 KB] , Palm Doc (PDB) [154 KB] , Microsoft Reader (LIT) [143 KB] , Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [190 KB] , hiebook (KML) [394 KB] , Sony Reader (LRF) [205 KB] , iSilo (PDB) [126 KB] , Mobipocket (PRC) [158 KB] , Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [194 KB] , OEBFF Format (IMP) [200 KB]
Words: 47607
Reading time: 136-190 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Portable Document Format (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

She'd run away again but, on the way to visit her Canadian grandfather her Porsche breaks down and she is stranded in the middle of a wheat field. Cassandra's hike for help led her to Brice Logan and his three foster children who lived in a farmhouse smack in the middle of that wheat.

Somehow, Cassandra ended up agreeing to stay on and help Brice keep his foster kids. She gives him a fake name in order to hide her identity but there is no way she can hide the fact that she has never lived a finger to do housework or cook in her life. Cassandra, Brice, and the children have a lot to learn about live, love, and overcoming grief. A story of romance, love, and hope! -Frances Boyle, Fictionwise Recommender

"What a charmer! I didn't want it to end."--Judy Griffith Gill, author of over 25 romance novels

"I need a woman bad, Joe. Real bad."

"When you find one, can we share?" Joe asked, his hazel eyes wide and solemn. But that was to be expected, considering.

"Sure, but how'm I going to find one out here?" Brice Logan's aching whisper arched across the dawn-pink prairie. He wrapped his hands around his oversized coffee mug. The warmth in his palms was a comfort and Lord knew, he needed it. He stared into the dust of the front yard and cursed softly. There were no answers in the whorls and footprints he saw. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Enough. The boy needed him. He glanced at Joe and found him deep in thought. Surprised, Brice settled on the porch swing and held it still for Joe to climb up. The boy wasn't usually so quiet. Not like he used to be.

"Maybe one'll just come," Joe announced suddenly in a clear, decisive voice. "You know, sorta like a' angel?"

Brice couldn't help but grin. He slanted a look at him, but Joe was staring off into the distance. He ruffled the boy's hair quickly, so Joe wouldn't notice or mind being touched.

"Sure," he agreed, "like an angel. Don't worry, Joe, we'll find one. We'll start to look first thing tomorrow."

Joe jumped down, as solemn as ever he'd been. "We don't have to." He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. "Can't you see her? The angel, just like I said." He moved out of Brice's way, pointing down the driveway.

Brice saw her then, too.

An angel.

An angel in a silvery, shimmery long dress. Tall and slinky. Long, white-gold hair loose in the breeze, the rosy dawn behind her like a cloak she'd just let fly in the wind. Like an angel.

No, not an angel. Angels didn't hobble on bare feet or dangle little sandals from elegant hands.

A woman.

A woman in trouble, he thought, and ran for her.

He got close enough to see the bottom half of her gown was covered in dust. Her hair, probably not used to wild prairie winds, was more tangled than gently combed. She was a mess and angry as spit. Or at least she was trying to be. She looked too tired to do much more than let her eyes burn indignantly. She stopped hobbling when she saw them running toward her.

In spite of her obvious exhaustion, she squared her shoulders and tilted her head in an expectant, haughty set. Her eyes, wide, startled and clear blue, looked straight at him, caught, as if trying to recognize him. Her parted lips were full and trembling.

He was prepared to catch her if she fell, but from the determination in her stance, her legs would know better than to give out on her now. He slowed to a walk and grinned as reassuringly as he could.

She stared back, not smiling. Her chest rose and fell as she took deep, even breaths. Her low-cut gown clung and outlined her full breasts with each breath. Her nipples stood out fully against the dawn's chill. He swallowed once and looked back up at her face.

"Hello?" she said, her voice a little foggy. "I'm so glad you're already awake." She waved a slim arm gracefully out and around, staggering slightly from the movement. "I can't believe I'm walking around out here at dawn. May I please use your phone to call the auto club?"

Her voice was soft, the tone cultured, educated, the accent foreign. Probably American, he decided. At least she wasn't some hooker left at the side of the road at midnight.

"No," he answered briefly.

First, he saw disbelief, then shock, and finally, outrage, in her perfect patrician features. Her chin tilted, eyes flashed and hair seemed to move and sway with an angry will of its own. If looks could harm, he'd be nothing but roadkill.

"I'll pay," she announced, her husky tones clear now. She dropped her gaze a little too quickly, then pressed her teeth into her lower lip.

If life had taught him anything at all, it was that lip chewing meant a lie. Quite often, the person also wanted to take the lie back. Was it possible his angel was dead broke?

All the better for him.

He smiled again, not wanting her to run screaming down the road. "We don't have a phone in the house."

The woman glanced around quickly, nervously, until her gaze settled on the wires overhead. She looked straight up at them, waiting until he stared at them as well. "You don't?" she asked in a clear, firm tone.

Cassandra Phillippa Morrison waited, unflinching, even though every sinew, every ligament, protested her correct, disciplined posture. She kept on waiting while the man stared up at the telephone wires as if he'd never seen them before. The little boy with him scuffed his sneakers in the dust and kept his head down.

"I had it disconnected last month," he finally said and blinked. "I had to stop the phone abuse somehow," he added, as if anyone could see the wisdom of his decision. All Andi could see was six feet of solid, muscular man standing between her and the luxury of a very cheap motel room. If she were less tired, he wouldn't appear so intimidating. If she were less tired, he wouldn't be swaying in front of her and the world wouldn't look so fuzzy....

"Here," he said, bending in front of her. "I'll carry you." He scooped her into his arms and staggered once before he set off.

Warm, strong, steel bands for arms held her high and close to his chest. She took a moment to comprehend that he'd even picked her up.

This sort of thing simply didn't happen to a Morrison.

"Let go of me, you big, dumb farmer," she demanded, flailing her arms and legs. She was too weak, or too lightweight to set him off balance. "You can't just carry me off like this!" She bucked harder but all she heard for her efforts was a quiet grunt.

She saw the little boy's eyes go wide as he saw what his father had done. At least someone in this family understood decorum. Then he turned on his heels and raced ahead of them shouting as he ran. Andi couldn't hear what he shouted because he was moving away too quickly.

She gave a stronger kick and buck and heard a whoosh of breath from the man holding her, but he continued his steady pace toward the house and away from the road.

The little boy was far ahead. "Help!" she called, certain her only rescuer was barely three feet tall. Her sandals would make great weapons if she could only swing them up and around. "Help me!"

When she checked where the farmer's attention was, she found it on her. His deep brown eyes watched hers steadily. Intrigued, she stopped flailing and looked every bit as steadily back at him, and waited. Surely he didn't intend to carry her the full length of this driveway?

"Look around here lady, do you see the cavalry? Do you see anybody or any thing?" His lip lifted in a half grin she found fascinating. He wasn't even breathing heavily, in spite of her best efforts to exhaust him.

She'd used the last of her strength along three or so miles of totally empty gravel road. That explained why wriggling in his arms soon became more work than it was worth. It had nothing to do with the underlying warmth and amusement she read behind his gaze and his grin.

Let him wear himself out, she thought, settling into the crook of his strong arms. She hung onto his neck with one arm, aware of the steady, rising beat of his heart under the palm of her other hand. It wasn't the worst place she'd been in the last few days. In fact, it was quite comfortable. He smelled of soap and warmth and woodsy things and not at all like a big, dumb farmer. Weren't they supposed to do sweaty chores at dawn?

The house he was taking her to was old, big and rambling. She saw two stories with six evenly spaced windows on each. A deep veranda stretched across the whole front. It was white with green shutters and very, very still. The little boy had gone inside and not come out again. Heaven knew what he was telling his mother.

When they reached the front of the house, the man carried her up three steps to the porch. His heart was racing. Startled, she looked up at him. His eyes, still watching her, said heated things. He was obviously as aware of her closeness as she was of his. She should have kept up the fight, but even now, even with his warm interest, the strength in his arms didn't threaten, but reassured.

The hitch in his lips didn't bloom into anything more and Andi was vaguely disappointed.

He allowed her to slide slowly down the length of his body to her feet, trailing his hands along her spine to rest on her lower waist.

"Are you all right?" he asked. "Can you stand?" He kept his hands on her, holding her pressed against him as if he didn't want to let her go.

Was her weakness from her long, hard days on the road, or the man's nearness and support? All she knew was he was easy to lean against. What would his wife think if she came upon them like this?

His eyes flashed with sudden humor, effectively denying the heat she'd seen in them. "You'd best stand on your own two feet. It's been a long time since I've had more than a soft bath towel against me. A warm woman might go right to my head."

The humor in his eyes only served to underscore the warning in his voice.

She stepped back a pace, but was still too sluggish to put any more distance between them. She might fall over before long without his help. "What are you going to do with me?" she whispered, confused and caught in his mesmerizing look.

Her mind must be fried with fatigue, she thought, to ask such a question. She took another, stronger step backward.

"I'm going to use you until I don't need you any more," he said bluntly.

She gasped, trying to absorb his words. They were beyond comprehension, almost incoherent. Except for one. Use.

A high, eerie, keening sound filled the silence between them. It shocked her, but not enough to quell the chill his words had brought on.

"What the hell..." he opened the door and looked inside. "What's all the screaming about?" he hollered.

Andi flinched, afraid for whoever was wailing. What could have happened to make someone cry out like that? She held on to the porch railing, refusing to give in to panic.

The farmer looked back at her over his shoulder, his eyes hard and cold. He assessed her a moment longer, cocked an ear for the crying and headed inside the farmhouse.

Suddenly alone on the porch in the still quiet of dawn she felt ... deflated. Anti-climactic. She'd been so filled with him, every sense alive and tingling because he held her. And now ... nothing. Just waiting. She'd heard exhaustion caused all manner of strange reactions. This was proof.

She watched him through the screen door, standing, dusty boots and all, on the burnished wood floor. Some woman would have his head for that. Maybe not. Not if the woman of the house was the person wailing upstairs. What in the world was going on?

"Marianne!" he called from the bottom of a long straight staircase that rose up the side of the wall. He took them two at a time, his leg and buttock muscles bunching powerfully under his well-worn jeans.

If she had any strength or sense left she'd set off down the driveway and keep on going until she reached civilization. Or the next farm, whichever came first. She searched the horizon, but now that the sun was completely up she couldn't make out any other lights or buildings.

There was no cavalry to rescue her, just as the man had said. There was nothing here but miles and miles of Saskatchewan. Canada was a much bigger country than she'd thought and these prairies went on forever.

She heard more crying from inside the house and peered through the screen again.

The farmer was at the top of the stairs. He was deceptively built. Tall and sinewy, without the bulk she'd expect to see in a man who carried her a full quarter mile without losing breath. He rattled a door at the top of the stairs, his other hand splayed against the painted door. It was a strong hand, long-fingered and gentle. Warm.

He'd said something about needing her.

No.

It was using her. He planned to use her until he didn't need her any more. She straightened, deliberately closing off the sound of the sobs.

She should be getting as far away from here as she could, not gawking through the door like a nosy neighbor. These people and their problems had nothing to do with her. The farmer could handle this emergency, whatever it was. He was more than capable, especially if he'd been the cause of it all.

She pulled herself away and took two painful steps across the porch. With any luck, she'd find the next farmhouse by noon.

The man suddenly burst onto the porch, wild-eyed. He looked up the driveway toward the road, then swept his gaze across the rest of the yard.

He was far too distracted and plain disorganized to pose any real threat to her. Use her? He didn't know the meaning of the word. She'd been used by the best all her life; bred for it, in fact. This farmer didn't have a hope in Hades of using her, even for a little while.

"I'll just go," she said softly. "You seem caught up in something and I'm sure I'll find another farmhouse around here somewhere." She edged toward the stairs, smiling encouragement.

"Did you see a teen-aged girl come out this way?" The desperation in his eyes caught at her befuddled sense of relief.

"Another captive?" she asked.

"You have to help me," he said, obviously too upset to rise to the bait of her silly question. That was good, because she could never follow it up. "Marianne won't let me into her room and Jayne's gone off somewhere, so I can't ask her."

"Marianne's the one who's crying," Andi guessed, hoping for confirmation, "and Jayne's the teenager I should have seen out here."

He nodded twice.

"Get your wife to handle it," she suggested sharply.

"If I had a wife I wouldn't need your help," he snapped back.

If he had a wife he wouldn't have mentioned that warm woman thing earlier. "I must be as crazy as you are," she said, and shook her head. "Okay. You win." Maybe she should put her sandals back on. No, her feet were probably too swollen to get into them. "But you owe me." She watched him, waiting for his acknowledgement of the deal she offered.

He nodded once, curtly. "Deal." He touched her on the elbow to help her turn toward the door. His hands were warm and gentle, exactly as she recalled. She winced and groaned with each step. He sighed impatiently next to her ear as she leaned on him. "Can you make it, or do you want me to carry you again?"

"No," she said quickly. If he held her the way he had before, she'd fall to pieces. She'd never forgive herself if he saw how close she was to collapse.

She managed, by clutching at his arm, to hobble up the longest, steepest staircase she'd ever climbed. When she made it to just outside the bedroom door she waited for him to knock quietly.

"May I please come in?" she called softly through the door, while looking directly at her companion. "My name is Andi." She used the nickname she preferred over her father's use of the formal Cassandra. It was a name even the press wasn't aware she used.

The man quirked an eyebrow saucily and nodded. "Brice," he said.

Brice. A name she'd never heard before. Brice. It rolled smoothly into her mind and clicked into place. She'd never forget it. Or him, she admitted. He'd be one of the stories she'd tell her friends when she got back to New York where she belonged.

She heard a key in the lock and the door slowly opened inward. A girl of about ten or eleven peered out at them. Midnight curls framed the girl's pretty tear-streaked face. A child. She'd never even spoken to a girl this young. What was she supposed to do now?

The girl stood back to let Andi enter. If this was the little boy's sister, then they had completely different coloring. The boy was golden-hued and sturdy. The girl had pale, translucent skin and was long-limbed and graceful. White as a sheet, the poor child hugged herself in her thin nightie.

She choked in a heavy sob. "I'm scared and I ... I ... don't know what to do." She glanced over her shoulder at her bed. Andi followed her gaze and saw the simple evidence of Marianne's puberty.

Andi reached out hesitantly to touch the girl's wayward black curls.

Marianne stepped back away from her, crimson with embarrassment.

Andi tried a smile. "Don't worry, I'll help you. There's nothing to be frightened of or embarrassed about." Her smile never wavered. It must have encouraged the girl because she smiled weakly in return.

"I'm not really scared. I mean, I know what this is, I just ... don't know what to do about it."

There seemed to be only one thing to do. Andi pulled the girl close and hugged her until the sobs eased. An explanation as old as time came as easily to her as if she'd made it a dozen times before.

What a position to find herself in, Andi thought. A surrogate parent on an occasion that should have been a special time between mother and daughter.