She’d told Cord once, over coffee, long after their breakup, that she’d fallen in love with Zach not because of his good looks, quick wit and sexy Australian accent, but because he was able to look past Millie’s advancing age and Sandra’s constant chatter and see them for the good-hearted, caring people they were.

So that was that, where anything that might have happened between Cord and Katie was concerned.

Katie was happy, Zach was happy, the kids were happy.

Cord? He was happy, too, for the most part.

He loved his work, the ranch, the state of Montana and the town of Painted Pony Creek. He was healthy and financially secure, if not out-and-out rich, like J.P.

Only one thing was lacking: a family of his own, starting—call him old-fashioned—with a wife.

So far, obviously, he was batting zero on that score. After repeating several variations of the Katie scenario, Cord had given up on finding Ms. Right anytime soon. Sex was easy enough; he knew several women who were as emotionally unavailable as he was, with no desire to lasso a husband, which should have been a win-win.

Except it wasn’t.

Bed hopping had been all right when he was younger—better than all right, actually—but these days, it always seemed to leave him lonelier than before. Not that he indulged in it all that much.

He wanted lovemaking, not just sex. Somebody to confide in and listen to. Somebody to laugh with and, if the occasion called for it, cry with, too.

She didn’t have to be beautiful.

She didn’t have to be skinny.

She just had to be real. In it for the long haul.

Basically, Cord wanted to love a woman the way he loved his job, his “calling,” as J.P. had said earlier—without reservation.

He’d learned a lot from his brief marriage. First of all, that he and Jenna had been a bad combination from the get-go.

He’d been faithful to her, but since the marriage only lasted eighteen months, he hardly deserved a medal for that. If they’d stayed together much longer, he might’ve gone looking for love in all the wrong places, as the song had it.

The plain fact was that no matter how much Cord groused to J.P. and Eli—and himself—about Jenna’s failings, he’d definitely been part of the problem. As soon as he’d realized the extent of his mistake, which was about a month after the wedding, he’d begun to withdraw.

He hadn’t half tried to make things work.

Next time he got married—if there was a next time—he’d make damn sure he found the right woman first.

Then, damn it, he would stay the course, the way he did in his work.