By the time Mitch’s sleek car came to a stop in front of Shay’s house, it was dark enough to cover major flaws. The screen door flew open and Hank burst into the glow of the porchlight, his teenage babysitter, Sally, behind him.

“Mom!” he whooped, bounding down the front walk on bare feet. “Wow! That’s some awesome car!”

Shay was smiling again; her son had a way of putting things into perspective. Sagging stoop be damned. She was rich because she had Hank.

She turned to Mitch, opening her own door as she did so, and put down a foolish urge to invite him inside. “Good night, Mr. Prescott, and thank you.”

He inclined his head slightly in answer and Shay felt an incomprehensible yearning to be kissed. She got out of the car and cut Hank off at the gate.

“Who was that?” the little boy wanted to know.

Shay ruffled his red-brown hair with one hand and ushered him back down the walk. “The man who bought Rosamond’s house.”

“Uncle Garrett called,” Hank announced when they were inside.

Shay paid the babysitter, kicked off her high-heeled sandals and sank onto her scratchy garage-sale couch. Garrett Thompson had been her stepbrother, during Rosamond’s Nashville phase, and though Shay rarely saw him, their relationship was a close one.

Hank was dancing from one foot to the other, obviously ready to burst. “Uncle Garrett called!” he repeated.

“Did he want me to call him back?” Shay asked, resting her feet on the coffee table with a sigh of relief.

Hank shook his head. “He’s coming here. He bought a house you can drive and he’s going fishing and he wants me to go, too!”

Shay frowned. “A house—oh. You mean a motor home.”

“Yeah. Can I go with him, Mom? Please?”

“That depends, tiger. Maggie and the kids will be going, too, I suppose?”

Hank nodded and Shay felt a pang at his eagerness, even though she understood. He was a little boy, after all, and he needed masculine companionship. He adored Garrett and the feeling appeared to be mutual. “We’d be gone a whole month.”

Shay closed her eyes. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow, Hank,” she said. “I’ve had a long day and I’m too tired to make any decisions.”

Anxious to stay in his mother’s good graces, Hank got ready for bed without being told. Shay went into his room and gave his freckled forehead a kiss. When he protested, she tickled him into a spate of sleepy giggles.

“I love you,” she said moments later, from his doorway.

“Ah, Mom,” he complained.

Smiling, Shay closed the door and went into her own room for baby-doll pajamas and a robe. After taking a quick bath and brushing her teeth, she was ready for bed.

She was not, however, ready for the heated fantasies that awaited her there, in that empty expanse of smooth sheets. She fell asleep imagining the weight of Mitch Prescott’s body resting upon her own.