Her Cowboy Hero. Tanya Michaels

is on the fridge. So is Kitty’s. She and Henry live just down the road, so she can be here in a matter of minutes. A lot faster than me.”

      Especially if Hannah ended up with a flat tire or some other roadside emergency. “You’re taking the truck?” he asked.

      “It has a lot more cargo space than Annette’s car and pulls the trailer better. I figured it was best to plan for a big haul. Power of positive thinking and all that.”

      He opened his mouth to comment, then thought better, shaking his head.

      “What?” Her hazel eyes narrowed. “Were you about to make some snide comment about my truck?”

      “About you. Not snide,” he backpedaled. “I was just wondering if this is something you were born with or a learned behavior—your sunny disposition, I mean. Does everyone in your family see the world in such a rose-colored view?”

      She jerked her head away abruptly, reaching into her purse and pulling out the sunglasses she’d mentioned. When she turned to face him again, the dark-tinted frames obscured her expression. “I was an orphan, actually.”

      They’d both lost their parents? The revelation of more common ground threw him for a loop. He and Hannah Shaw were polar opposites. He wouldn’t have guessed that their backgrounds shared many similarities.

      “Your parents are dead?” he heard himself ask.

      “I honestly have no idea. Never met them,” she said matter-of-factly. “I was abandoned as a newborn and grew up mostly in foster care. But to answer your question, the ‘sunny disposition’ was self-taught. I suppose I could moan and sulk my way through life, being bitter about anything that went wrong, but what kind of example would that be for my son?”

      Her words had an edge to them. Because the topic was upsetting for her, or because she’d taken his question as criticism?

      Or was she perhaps criticizing him? Colin may not have been flashing smiles left and right for the past three days, but he sure as hell wasn’t sulking.