Lily wasn’t looking forward to being back in the house that held so many memories, or living with Mack, either, but that was the price she was willing to pay to keep her kids out of jail. The last time she’d been home was for her mother’s funeral. She’d planned on driving back over to Comfort every weekend until she got the place cleaned out and put up for sale, but she’d been so busy with the divorce and the move to the apartment soon after that she just let that business slide. Thinking of the divorce still made her angry, even after all these years. Right after she’d buried her mother, Wyatt revealed that he’d fallen in love with one of his clients, oil baroness Victoria Banfield—he had told her in a tone that sounded like he was discussing the weather. He was willing to give Lily the house they lived in at the time, but there was no way that her salary as a work-at-home mom could ever make the mortgage payments. So they’d sold it. She’d put her part of the equity into a college fund for the kids and paid the first year’s rent on an apartment that was really too expensive for her budget, but it gave the kids their own bathroom and privacy. They deserved that much when their sorry father didn’t even want normal custodial rights.

Wyatt was married within days of the divorce, in another state or another country. She had moved herself and the kids into the apartment, and life went on. The house in Comfort had been on the back burner. She had seldom thought about it. With everything going on in her life at that time with the pain of a divorce, she just couldn’t put herself through the heartbreak of sorting out her mother’s things. Two months went by, and Mack Cooper called to ask if she’d be interested in renting it—as is—with everything inside the place included in the rent. As the new teacher in Comfort, he needed a place outside town with a few acres to run his goats. They’d agreed that he would move the furniture from her parents’ bedroom to the empty room upstairs.

Lily remembered Mack from her high school days. He had a twin brother who was downright sexy and always had a harem around him, but Mack was withdrawn and shy. Adam had been the football hero. Mack had been into the ag program. They sure didn’t act or look like twins. Even so, she’d checked out all his references and settled on an amount for the rent. He’d never been late on a single payment, and Lord only knew how much the money helped her get by.