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CHAPTER ONE

BABY SHOWERS always depressed Katy Andrews.

So did wedding showers, April showers and, if she’d been able to think of any other kind of showers, they would no doubt depress her, too.

The fact was, at the advanced age of thirty, Katy had neither husband, child, nor prospects of obtaining either in the foreseeable future.

Which was the reason that sitting in the middle of pink and blue crepe-paper streamers in a corner of the Rawhide Café in Rawhide, Colorado, didn’t exactly leave her brimming with enthusiasm.

That is, until her best friend Laura Reynolds waddled into the café, let out a little shriek of surprise and was immediately obscured by a horde of hugging females.

Katy sighed. Laura’s baby was due in another month—late September. The glowing mother-to-be had left her job as lifestyles editor of the Rawhide Review newspaper six weeks ago to await the birth of this, her second child. Katy, city reporter for the Review, thought the place hadn’t been the same without her best friend.

But she had to admit that married life agreed with Laura, who had never looked lovelier. Even minus her customary grace, she was a joy to behold as she waddled up to Katy with a big smile on her face.

Katy’s answering smile was completely sincere. She might be envious of her friend’s happiness, but she wouldn’t be mean-spirited about it. “Long time, no see,” she said.

“Too long.” Laura eased herself into a chair across the table. “There just seems so much to do to get ready for the baby.”

“But you’ve got such good help,” Katy teased.

“Oh, yes,” Laura agreed airily. “Just what I need—a ten-year-old girl and a seven-year-old boy ‘helping.’ This poor little baby will be lucky to have a bed when it arrives, with all that help.”

Katy figured that “poor little baby” would be just about the luckiest baby around. It would arrive to find a loving blended family waiting, complete with father Matt, mother Laura, sister Jessica and brother Zach. The importance of a bed paled by comparison.

“Is Matt getting excited?” Katy wanted to know.

Laura rolled her eyes. “Deliriously. Even when I informed him that I expect him to go into the delivery room and hold my hand the entire time, he didn’t run screaming from the house.”

“Brave guy,” Katy agreed. That her old school friend Matt would turn out to be such a rock impressed her. He was certainly nothing like his friend and Katy’s long-time nemesis, Dylan Cole. Katy would have bet that you couldn’t melt Dylan and pour him into a delivery room.

Laura beamed. “The kids say I owe it all to you and that magic wand they gave to you,” she said with a mischievous gleam in her eyes. “They’re probably right. After all, who else would have forked out hard cash for those magnificent glass slippers? They made it impossible for me to turn down the pleas of my Prince Charming.”

The two women laughed together, reliving the trials and tribulations leading up to the happy melding last year of Matt and his daughter with Laura and her son into one big happy family.

Katy had been a willing participant with the children in bringing about the union of two people obviously meant to spend their lives together. Yielding to the children’s pleas, she’d bought the ugliest and biggest plastic shoes in the world for Prince Charming to slip upon the dainty feet of his Cinderella. To avoid any last-minute complications, Jessica and Zach had also made and decorated a “magic wand” out of a paper plate and a dowel, presenting it to Katy as their own special Fairy Godmother. Getting into the spirit of the occasion, Katy had waved that wand around with more enthusiasm than verve.

“And,” Laura added, “I see you’ve brought your wand with you today. Are we going to need a little magic?”

“Laura, I need a lot of magic. My family is driving me nuts about—”

“Laura, Laura, we need you at the head table.” Rawhide’s Mayor Marilyn Rogers appeared to whisk Laura away to the place of honor. Throughout the luncheon, throughout the opening of baby gifts, Katy remained uncharacteristically quiet, in the background, with a half-sad smile pasted on her face.

All this hoop-de-doo couldn’t help but remind her of her own failings. Thirty and single, her entire family was on her back to marry and reproduce—as if it were that simple. She couldn’t exactly wave her magic wand—as successful as it had been in the past—and conjure up a Romeo of her own.

If she could, she certainly would. A movement near the door caught her eye and she saw Dylan Cole enter. He hesitated, looking around for a table. She could only hope he didn’t notice the empty one directly behind where she sat.

She and Dylan couldn’t be in the same room for five minutes without launching into battle. It had been that way all their lives, even back in grammar school when he and his buddy Matt Reynolds had made her life miserable.

She turned her back on him just in time to see Laura pull a beautiful hand-made baby quilt from a brightly wrapped box. Good thing mother isn’t here to see this, Katy thought darkly. Lovely and feminine, Laura was the daughter her mother should have had, she thought gloomily even as she applauded enthusiastically. Instead, her mother had got a daughter who grew up a wild tomboy ready to take on the world.

On her thirtieth birthday last October 25, Katy had thought her mother and grandmother were going to hold a wake. And this year, she realized, would be even worse. Her grandmother’s health had deteriorated, her mother reported weekly, and Grandma’s only wish was “to see Katy settled before I die.”

“Settled,” to the Andrews family, meant married, preferably with children.

Throughout lunch and the opening of gifts, Katy mentally reviewed every man she knew in or near the town of Rawhide and came up short. There wasn’t a single suitable husband for her in all the land—and she knew them all. Born and raised here, now in her seventh year as a reporter at the local paper, it was no exaggeration to say she knew everyone.

The shower wound to a close. Katy remained in her seat while Laura said her good-byes and thank-yous, then approached to sink gratefully, if ungracefully, into the chair she’d occupied earlier.

“Isn’t everyone nice?” Laura gushed. “To go to so much trouble for me is just—”

“Natural,” Katy inserted, “because you’re so nice, Laura.”

Laura smiled. “I don’t know about that, but I do know that I’m so happy I sometimes think I’m just going to burst with it.” Leaning across the table, she patted Katy’s hand. “In fact, I’m so happy that I want all my friends to share in it. Lately, I’ve been getting this uncontrollable urge to play matchmaker. Isn’t that awful?”

“Start with me,” Katy said fervently. “Laura, my mom and grandmother are driving me nuts. They’re after me constantly to get married, like I’m against men or something! It’s been so long since I even had a date that I’m not sure I remember how to act.”

Laura squeezed the hand beneath hers. “It’s like riding a bike. You never forget.”

“Don’t be too sure.” Katy fingered the unpainted dowel supporting her magic wand. “Makes me sorry this magic wand doesn’t really work. I’d sure like to conjure up a fiancé to keep my family off my back and Grandma alive for another year.”

Snatching up the wand, she gave it a sharp crack over her head. It whapped into somebody or something, and she froze, afraid to look. Her horrified gaze begged Laura to tell her she hadn’t smacked some little old lady.

Laura laughed. “Hi, Dylan. What are you doing skulking around behind us that way?”

“Dylan!” Katy twisted in her chair. “Thank heaven it’s only you. I was afraid I’d hurt somebody.” She waited for him to make some sarcastic remark.

He stood there rubbing his right elbow, one eyebrow cocked while he looked down at the two women with a calculating expression on his face. A local rancher, he wore the uniform of his trade: denim pants, plaid shirt, boots and hat. Many women had raved to Katy about his good looks but she couldn’t see it; all she could see was the kid who’d pestered her and tried to get the best of her nearly her entire life.

When he simply continued looking at them with that unfamiliar gleam in his eye, she added, “That’s what you get for sneaking around behind people. What are you doing back there?”

“Eavesdropping.” He said it as if it were a virtue. “Mind if I join you?” He plopped down in an empty chair and placed his hat on the table, brim up.

“Yes, I mind,” Katy said, not expecting him to pay that the slightest attention, which he didn’t. “And you’ve got some nerve, eavesdropping on a private conversation.”

“Yeah, I do.” He gave them both a winsome smile. “I couldn’t help but overhear.”

“Couldn’t help? We were hardly shouting.”

“Katy,” he drawled, “you’ve got a voice that could shatter glass. I just seem to hear it above any hubbub.”

That brought a reluctant smile. “Okay,” she said ungraciously, “you eavesdropped. Now I suppose you have some caustic comment to make.”

“No.” He looked offended. “Look, you need a fiancé in name only. You can’t help it if you’re a wallflower.”

This was the Dylan she knew. “So?” She felt her cheeks grow hot with embarrassment. It was one thing to confide her lack of sex appeal to her best friend but quite another to discover an old adversary had also heard.

“So…” He sucked in a deep breath. “Surprise! So do I.”

For a moment she simply stared at him. Then she said, “I beg your pardon? So do you, what?”

“Need a fiancée,” he said patiently.

“For what? If this is a joke, Dylan Cole, so help me I’ll—”

“It’s no joke,” he said quickly. “Calm down, Katy. See, since Matt got married I seem to have become the favorite target of every love-starved female in town. Plus, Brandee’s back in town.”

“Brandee Haycox? Head cheerleader, homecoming queen, all-around Miss Popularity—that Brandee Haycox?”

“Ha-ha,” he said, “very funny. There’s only one Brandee Haycox.”

“Which has what to do with you? Last I heard, she’d gone off to run a health club in Denver or some such.”

“And now she’s healthy and she’s moved back again.” He squirmed in his chair. “And she…uh…seems determined to add me to her list of conquests, if you know what I mean.” He gave a self-conscious shrug of wide shoulders. “My spirit is unwilling but my flesh is weak. I gotta do something to protect myself, fast.”

Laura looked puzzled. “I don’t get it, Dylan. Can’t you just tell her you’re not interested?”

“I am interested—heck, a man would have to be dead not to be—but not in any long-term way, if you get my drift. I need someone to save me from myself.”

“Or save Brandee,” Katy said, annoyed because it seemed to her that he was trivializing her own problem, which was much more serious—i.e., more important—than his own. “Good grief, Dylan, you’ve never been a wimpy sort of guy. Just avoid her—avoid all of them.”

He gritted his teeth. “It’s not a matter of wimpy, it’s a matter of survival. And there’s something else.” He looked disgusted. “Since Brandee’s daddy owns just about everything in this town, including the bank that holds my mortgage, I’d just as soon not offend his baby girl.”

Katy nodded emphatically. “Okay, I get it. So your plan is to…what?”

“Well,” he said, “before I overheard you moaning and groaning about needing a fiancé, I didn’t have a plan. But now it occurs to me that if I wasn’t available, Brandee and the rest of ’em might take the hint.”

“What happens when she realizes your new love isn’t exactly on the up and up?”

He smiled. “You know Brandee. By then, she’ll have moved on to someone better.”

Katy did, indeed, know Brandee. Which meant she also knew he was right on in his assessment of the beauteous blonde. Brandee didn’t have a mean bone in her body but she could be very tunnel-visioned—and she liked men. A lot. “How long do you need this fictional sweetheart?” Katy wanted to know.

“I dunno, not too long. A few months? You?”

“A few months,” she agreed. “Until my birthday, for sure.”

He nodded. “October twenty-fifth.”

She gaped. “You remember my birthday?”

“Why not? I went to enough of your stupid birthday parties growing up.” He made a face. “The only thing that made it bearable was that your mother always baked a good cake.”

“Yeah, and she’s the one who made me invite you. She always liked ‘that nice Cole boy.’ Which proves she didn’t really know you.”

Dylan grinned. “Your mom likes me? That’s great. I need all the fans I can get.” His expression grew cautious. “So what do you think?”

“Give me a minute to think about this.” Eyeing him warily, she wondered if there was any way they might get along for more than five minutes, even with so much at stake. Certainly he was not bad looking—handsome, according to many. Owner of the Bear Claw Ranch west of town, he was popular with men and sought after by women, one of whom had caught him; he’d been married and divorced.

But could they make such a charade work? Unfortunately, Katy was desperate enough to find out….

“Okay,” she said, “we might as well give it a try. What do we have to lose?”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Nothing except our lives.”

“We’ll have to get a lot of things straight first,” she warned. “For example, how will we ever convince anyone we’re a couple?”

He grinned. “I’ve got a tougher question than that. How will we ever convince anyone that a dyed-in-the-wool career woman like you even wants to get married?”

“Why, of all the nerve!” She practically sputtered in her outrage. “Of course, I want to get married! What makes you think—”

Laura waved her hands for order. “Hold it, you two. This is no place to work out the details.”

Katy glanced around, saw several pairs of eyes watching, and groaned. “You’re right. Where—?”

“My house.”

Dylan blinked. “ Your house, Laura?”

She nodded. “For dinner tomorrow night at six—the kids need to eat early, and then we—I mean you can work out all the details without an audience.”

Dylan made a face. “Matt will really get a kick out of this.”

“Quit grumbling,” Katy snapped. “We’ll be there, Laura.”

“Speak for yourself,” Dylan flared.

“Okay, the floor is yours.” She slumped back in her chair peevishly.

“We’ll be there, Laura,” he said, as if this were new information. “Now if you ladies will excuse me—” Lifting his hat from the table and clapping it on his head, he rose and strode toward the door.

Katy stared after him until he’d disappeared outside. Then she groaned. “Laura, what have I done?”

“Everything you can to make your grandmother happy. Remember that, Katy.”

As if she could forget. There was no other reason in the world she’d deliberately subject herself to the company of Dylan Cole.

Dinner with the Reynolds family was curiously awkward.

Katy couldn’t quite figure out why. Matt and Laura were her dearest friends, and she adored their talkative children. And although she didn’t put Dylan into those exalted categories, she was, at least, accustomed to him.

Maybe it was just the strain of trying not to fight with him.

Whatever it was, he seemed to be feeling the pressure, too. In fact, he looked entirely ready to grab his hat and run out the door at the slightest provocation.

“So,” Matt said, lifting another piece of Laura’s good fried chicken off the platter, “what do you two think about the new gasoline station going up on the west side of town?”

“I think it’s a crime,” Dylan said swiftly, right over Katy’s, “I think it’s high time!”

They looked at each other across the table, frowning.

Katy said, “If you lived over there, you wouldn’t be so quick to condemn. I have to drive halfway across town now to fill up my car.”

“And if you had any concern for the environment and runaway growth, you wouldn’t mind driving a couple of blocks further,” he shot back. “That’s what’s wrong with people today. All they think about is themselves.”

“Why, of all the cotton-headed approaches to urban planning—”

“Not to mention overpopulation. If we don’t do something to stop it, Colorado’s going to turn into another California. Why, just the other day—”

“Excuse me.” Laura gave them a warning glance. “Can you hold off on that until the kids are excused?”

Ten-year-old Jessica, seated beside Katy, grinned. “I don’t want to be excused. I think it’s fun to hear Aunt Katy and Uncle Dylan fight.”

Laura rolled her eyes. “ Fighting is not fun. How about I give you kids an ice cream bar for dessert and you can eat it outside while the grownups talk?”

“She means ‘fight,”’ Jessica confided to seven-year-old Zach, who was listening with wide eyes. “Sure, Mom. We know when someone wants to get rid of us.”

Once the kids were through the door, Matt chuckled. “When Laura told me what you two are up to, I told her it would never work. Was I right?” He looked lovingly at his wife, who sighed.

Katy felt duty-bound to defend her friend’s faith in her. “Look, if Dylan and I want to make it work, it’ll work.”

The gentleman in question raised his brows. “ Do we want to make it work?”

She let out her breath on a gust of displeasure. “If you’re going to take that attitude…no.”

“Katy!” Laura exclaimed. “I thought your mother and grandmother—”

“I’d do it for them if I could, but I don’t really see any way.” Katy shook her head in disgust.

Laura turned to Dylan. “And what about Brandee Haycox?”

Matt bolted upright in his chair. “Brandee’s after you now? Dylan, why didn’t you tell me?” He began to laugh.

“I didn’t tell you because I knew this would be your reaction.” The corners of Dylan’s attractive mouth curved down. “And because I knew you wouldn’t have any tips on how to dislodge her.”

“Oops.” Matt glanced at his wife. He’d been Brandee’s target once himself, before he and Laura got together.

Laura frowned. “I just don’t get it,” she complained. “You’re two of my favorite people and—”

“Since when?” Katy shot a challenging glance at Dylan. “I never thought you liked that guy.”

Laura laughed. “I didn’t—and I didn’t like this guy, either.” She touched her husband’s arm tenderly. “Which all goes to show you that things aren’t always what they seem.”

Katy rolled her eyes. “Skim milk masquerades as cream,” she agreed, “but I’ve never heard of cream masquerading as skim milk.”

Dylan frowned. “Am I being insulted, here? Katy, there’s no law saying we have to go out there and make fools of ourselves trying to convince folks we’re a couple. If we told them we’d buried the tomahawk, they’d think we buried it in each other’s back.”

“Absolutely.” She nodded for emphasis. “This will never work, so it’s good we found out right away. No hard feelings.” She offered her hand.

“Naw.”

He took her hand in a grip she felt all the way to her shoulder, but she wouldn’t allow herself to flinch.

He added, “At least no more hard feelings than usual. Kind of a shame, actually.”

She knew she shouldn’t ask, but she did anyway. “What’s kind of a shame?”

“That a good-lookin’ woman like you can’t find some guy willing to tame you into something approaching a woman. Because—”

“Out of here!” Laura surged to her feet. “If you two want to go at it hammer and tongs, don’t do it in my kitchen!” She pointed toward the door with a quivering finger.

“Sorry.” Dylan jumped up. “We wouldn’t want to upset the pregnant lady. Thanks for a great meal, Laura. And thanks for trying.”

“Ditto.” Katy rose, too. “I’m sorry about all that. Old habits die hard, I guess.”

“Maybe, but they can die—if either of you really wanted that to happen.”

“I suppose. As he said, dinner was great and your intentions were even better.” Katy hesitated. “Sure I can’t help you with the dishes?”

“You run along.” Laura, equilibrium restored, smiled. “And think about how much easier life would be for all of us if you and Dylan could just get along.”

“I’ll do that,” Katy promised, adding a silent when hell freezes over.

She kept that state of mind all the way home to her little house on the edge of town. Complete with white picket fence, it was her pride and joy.

The phone was ringing when she unlocked the door. It was her mother, Liz, who lived in Denver with the rest of the Andrewses, including Katy’s “little” brothers: Mack, twenty-six, and Josh, twenty-seven; and her grandmother, Edna. Katy’s father had died nearly five years ago.

“What’s up, Ma?” she asked, tossing her shoulder bag on the sofa. “Everybody all right?”

“Everybody’s wonderful,” Liz said in her usual upbeat manner. “I’ve got some good news, Katy.”

“I can use some of that.”

“We’re having a family reunion October fourth. Everybody’s coming—Uncle Tom and the kids from Omaha, Aunt Gertrude and her family from Tulsa, all of ’em.”

“Sounds great,” Katy said cautiously. Not that she didn’t love her family, and the big reunions were always fun, but she sensed a hidden minefield here someplace. “I’ll bet Grandma’s excited.”

“Oh, she is! But…there’s this little problem….”

“Uh-oh.”

Liz’s tone changed, became cajoling. “Katy, you know how concerned your grandmother is that you’re not married, or even seeing anyone special. And with her health the way it is…well, I know you’ll understand.”

Katy’s heart stood still. “Understand what?”

“Why I’ve taken the liberty of getting you a date for the reunion, dear. He’s a very nice boy, a friend of your brothers’, and he’s really looking forward to meeting you. He’s a lawyer with one of the best firms in town and he—”

“Stop!” Katy’s mind raced. A friend of her brothers’? She’d rather die an old maid.

“But Katy, dear, your grandmother…”

“Grandma doesn’t have a thing to worry about,” Katy lied through her teeth, “because…” Say it! “Because…because I’ll have my own date, thank you very much. As a matter of fact, I have been seeing someone and—and it’s getting serious.”

So there!

The negotiating dinner at Laura’s had been even worse than Dylan expected and he hadn’t expected much. Disgusted, he decided to stop at the Painted Pony Saloon on his way home and have a beer with his buddies, some of whom were sure to be there.

Sure enough, he found a couple of friends holding up one end of the bar and joined them. He got his beer and kept his mouth shut except when he was drinking it.

Until one of the guys leaned over and whispered, “Guess who just walked in, good buddy?”

Dylan knew who it was by the cold chill that shot down his spine. Slowly he turned to find Brandee smiling and waving from the other side of the room, where she stood with a couple of other women he knew—single women eyeing the cowboys at the bar with interest.

He didn’t wave her over, but she came just the same, swinging her hips in tight jeans and grinning broadly.

“Hi, sugar.” Rising on tiptoe, she planted a firm kiss on his stiff lips. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Yeah. Fancy that.”

“Wanna buy me a drink?”

“Love to, but I can’t stay to watch you drink it.” Draining his glass, he motioned to the bartender. “Bring the lady whatever she wants and then clear my tab,” he instructed.

Brandee frowned. “What’s the hurry?” she complained. “I hardly ever see you here.”

“Well, I just came from—”

“Hang around and you can take me home.” She looped an arm around his waist and squeezed meaningfully.

Dylan felt the breath of doom on the back of his neck. “I’d like to, Brandee, but I can’t.”

“Why can’t you?” Her blue eyes challenged him.

“Uhh…because…ahh…” He thought fast, or rather his thoughts tumbled fast. “Because…I’m taken.”

That stopped her, at least momentarily. “Taken?”

“You know, I’ve got a girl.”

“You’re kidding!”

“Would I kid you?”

She laughed. “If you thought you could get away with it. Who is this mysterious ‘girl’ you say you’ve got?”

He strove to look hurt. “Are you saying you don’t believe me?”

She considered, then nodded. “Exactly. I’ve known you too long to fall for your line. I’ll have to see her for myself.”

Dylan sucked in a deep breath. His back to the wall, he grasped at straws. “Drop by here Friday night and you’ll see her, all right.”

And even after you do, he added silently, you may not believe it.

I sure as hell don’t.