With no more than a glittering glance at her, he turned to scoop up his startled daughter and stalked out of the kitchen, leaving Heather alone in the brittle silence.

Her hand clenched over her stomach, she heaved a shuddering breath, fighting tears of despair and anguish, wondering if she had made a terrible mistake.

The silent and bitter war between them showed no signs of abating. They might as well have been strangers, for all the intimacy they shared.

Sloan kept his promise to keep away from her bed, not betraying by so much as a touch or a glance that he cared whether her heart was breaking.

It was all Heather could do not to humble herself at his feet, to beg him to love her. Yet he had spurned her love in the starkest terms imaginable, and it would serve no purpose to try to persuade him differently.

She might have been gratified to know Sloan was battling his own inner devils.

They struck him hardest when he rode home at sunset one evening to find Heather beside the corral, supervising his daughter’s new acquaintance with a gentle mare.

“Was there something you wanted?” Heather asked, her tone carefully even as he sat looking down at her from the saddle.

You, he nearly said. Her beauty nearly took his breath away. The setting sun made a gilt halo of her hair, while her porcelain complexion was flushed with gold and rose—a vivid reminder of how she looked in the depths of passion. A searing passion they had shared until he had destroyed the fragile bond between them.

Sloan felt his throat close tightly as a sharp pang of longing went through him. Yet he couldn’t give her the love she needed.

Maybe Heather was right. Maybe it might be best if she took herself the hell out of his life. Then he could return to the cold shell that had protected him from the tormenting emotions of grief and guilt and loneliness in the endless months after Doe’s death.

Maybe then he could escape the pain that hounded him now when he merely looked at Heather.

It was a shock to them both when Evan Randolf unexpectedly arrived in Colorado the following week. Heather had just applied herself to the mending basket in the kitchen when she heard the knock at the front door rather than the back, as was customary when neighbors came to call.

“Evan!” she exclaimed when she opened the door.

His smile was warm, his look intent as he removed his bowler to expose carefully styled dark hair. He appeared as elegant and handsome as ever in a tailored chocolate frock coat and fawn trousers.

“How are you, my dear?” When she stared at Evan in incomprehension, he prodded gently, “I trust you are well.”

“Yes… of course.” She was well, if well meant heartsick and lonely.