Second Chance Rancher. Patricia Thayer

      He smiled at her joking, then he grew serious, realizing that his daughter was getting very attached to Laurel. Besides being beautiful and sexy, he’d seen how loving and caring she’d been with Addy.

      “Look, Laurel, my life is unsettled to say the least. I have a daughter to raise, and a father facing surgery.” He sighed. That was only the tip of his problems. “As you’ll soon learn, my in-laws are suing for custody of Addy. So everything I do is under a microscope.”

      He saw the compassion in her eyes. “Is that because they believe you’re the cause of their daughter’s death?”

      “Where did you hear that?”

      “A newspaper article on the web.”

      “We’d already separated before her overdose.” His gaze met Laurel’s interested look. “I tried to help her, but she wouldn’t go into rehab. Not even for Addy. I even went to my father-in-law, but he refused to help have his daughter committed. Bad for business, he said. So I resigned from the firm and filed for divorce.”

      “Was Addy living with her mother then?”

      He nodded. “I’ll regret that until my dying day. The only consolation was her nanny, Mary Beth, who’d been with Addy since birth and had gone with her when they’d moved into the cottage on Johanna’s parents’ property. At least Addy and Johanna had supervision.” He stole a look at Laurel. She had every right to judge his parenting skills.

      “Two weeks later, I got the call about Johanna’s drug overdose.”

      He felt her hand on his arm. “I’m sorry, Kase.”

      He shrugged, ashamed that he couldn’t give his wife what she needed. And questioning himself if he even tried enough to make the marriage work. “So am I.”

      “So you came back here?”

      “Since Addy had already been staying at her grandparents’, I had a tough time getting physical custody. Ben and Judith refused to give her up, but I finally got a lawyer to help me and removed her from her grandparents’ home.”