She’d missed Cort. They’d been together almost every day since they’d been to the casino. She couldn’t wait to see him when she got home. But she was in for a shock when she called Bart to ask for Cort to call her. Cort was gone. “Gone?!” she exclaimed, devastated.

“He left you a letter,” he said. “Want me to run it over there?”

“Would you mind?” she asked, her mind still in limbo. “I’m writing up our mission while it’s still fresh in my head.”

“I want to hear about that,” he replied with a laugh.

“You can hear about it over coffee. I’ll make a new pot!”

SHE READ THE letter while Bart sipped coffee. Cort had an emergency back home, he’d said. He was sorry he had to leave while she was out of town, but it involved a relative who was in big trouble and he couldn’t turn his back on the man. He’d be back in a couple of weeks, he promised.

She put the letter down. Doubts crawled in. Was there really a relative in trouble, or was he just getting rid of an uncomfortable love affair that he didn’t want anymore?

“He was torn up about it,” Bart said softly, which was the truth. Cort had raised the roof. It seemed that his father and stepmother had hit a bump and separated. Vic was at the ranch roaring drunk and scattering cowboys. Cort had to deal with him. He’d asked Bart to make sure Mina knew that it wasn’t from choice that he’d walked away.

Her dark eyes sought his and there was devastation in them. “Was he really, or was he just looking for a way out?”

He smiled. “He’s crazy about you—couldn’t you tell?” he teased. “I’ve never heard such language. He really didn’t want to go.”

She relaxed a little. She smiled. “Okay.”

“He wanted you to know that he’d be back as soon as he could arrange things back home.”

She relaxed even more. “I feel better.”

He cocked his head. “What were you up to with the guys this time?”

“A rescue,” she replied. “We saved a young boy from a kidnapper. It wasn’t even planned—we just walked into it. I felt so good.”

“Someday, you’re going to have to level with Cort about what you really do for a living,” he prompted. He didn’t add that his cousin was going to have to do some confessing of his own.

She grimaced and sipped black coffee. “I know. I should have told him before now. I was living down to his image of me. It stung a little.”

“I know. But your new book is climbing the charts. It’s already made the Publishers Weekly list and it’s on the New York Times list.”

She nodded. “My agent called me early this morning to tell me that it was at number eight. She was over the moon. She says it will go higher.”

“You bet it will. The reviews on Amazon are awesome.”