He grew up in a big house in Brookside, a rich, exclusive neighborhood in Kansas City. After he graduated from a private high school, he went away to an Eastern Ivy League university. When he returned to Kansas, Hayes went directly to a managerial position at an international bank, thanks to his father. He moved into his parents’ guesthouse. He’d made Mike nearly swoon when he said he didn’t want to buy a house until he had a wife and they could choose it together.

In normal circumstances, someone with Hayes’s background and Michaela, from farm country, wouldn’t usually meet.

She and Hayes liked to say it was fate that brought them together—that and Hayes not seeing an animal hospital when he drove past it. He’d been on the highway, driving south to Lawrence to meet a client, when a dog ran in front of him. He swerved, nearly missed it, but he saw in his rearview that the dog went down. He stopped and cautiously picked it up, but the animal seemed grateful. There was blood on its side. He wrapped it in his gym towel, put it in his car, then took the exit to Ottawa. Somehow, he drove past their big animal clinic and on to Mason. That day, both Coop and Mike were there. While Coop treated the dog, Hayes and Mike talked, and he asked her out for the next weekend.

It had been a wonderful date. They’d gone to a nice restaurant in Overland Park and had talked for hours.

When she said her biological mother was Vera Exton, his eyes lit up. “My father is a big fan of hers. He says she’s the only reporter he actually believes.”

Hayes wanted to hear all about Mike’s life and she’d enjoyed telling him about her summers in faraway countries. After three months of dating, he invited her home to meet his parents. His mother hadn’t been the warmest of people, but his father had been enthralled by everything Mike had to say about her time in distant places.

Since then, she and Hayes had spent a lot of time together and they got on very well. There’d been a few disagreements, as Hayes did have a temper, but she always managed to calm him down. As for her own temper, which everyone said was just like Vera’s, she’d learned to keep it under control.

She didn’t want to ruin a good thing.

All her family liked Hayes well enough except for her uncles Seth and Pauly. Years before, they’d retired and turned Heritage Harvests over to Cait.

“Now all we want is endless sunshine,” Pauly said.

“And checks,” Seth added. They’d moved to a pretty villa in the south of France, and Heritage Harvests sent them a fat check every month.