The sad truth was that he’d loved only one woman in his life—Reba Shannon. And he’d loved her with the vehemence of youth. Were those feelings, which he’d been remembering today, which he’d been experiencing, simply a holdover from the past? One that had suddenly emerged because of her daughter? He hadn’t thought much about Reba in recent years, but she’d been on his mind today. These were the questions that crowded his mind.

Time to forget about Reba. She was gone. And forget about Jenna, which he more or less had. Time to leave those bad memories behind.

And time to pull his head out of his ass and get it back on his shoulders. Stop looking for what might have been and take some interest in what is, here and now.

Painted Pony Creek was a small town, yes, but it had its share of attractive, available women. Over the years—and Cord wasn’t proud of this—he’d slept with a few of them and shut down at the first sign that something lasting might be taking root.

There’d been Katie Dupree, for instance, a pretty redheaded RN, divorced, with two great kids.

Cord hadn’t loved Katie, though something might have developed, given time. But he’d fallen head over heels for those kids, two little boys with hair like their mother’s and hope in their hearts—hope that they might, just might, get themselves a dad to replace the one who’d left them behind to move to another state, marry another woman and start himself a whole new family.

Cord had stopped seeing Katie as soon as he realized the kids had him tagged as a stepfather. He ended the relationship not because there was anything wrong between them, but because he was afraid of hurting her in the long run and, worse, hurting those innocent kids.

Katie was understandably angry and confused at the time but, blessedly, life had turned out more than okay for her. Less than a year later, she’d married newcomer Zach Fairfield, a family physician.

Zach, a widower with no children, had tired of asphalt, traffic and smog, and wanted to live a simpler life. When old Doc Fillmore finally retired, Zach bought his practice and started seeing patients right away, keeping Doc’s small staff—Millie, the bookkeeper, and Sandra, the receptionist—on the payroll.

This made him popular in the community because Millie was seventy-five if she was a day as well as opinionated and a little forgetful, and unlikely to be hired anywhere else, and Sandra, although sweet, wasn’t qualified to do anything besides answer phones and book appointments.

Zach had also hired Katie, who’d been employed at the hospital outside town since earning her degree but was ready for a change.