Don’t let them get to you, he chanted to himself. Don’t let them whittle away at your pride and self-confidence. You’re a self-made man who came up from rock bottom, and you’ve earned your success. If you start looking at yourself through their condemning eyes, your struggles and hard-won victories will count for nothing. You knew it would take time to prove yourself to the folks in this town. You knew you would have to earn a respectable reputation. Have patience, man. You knew damned good and well this wasn’t going to be easy.
Nate sucked in a cleansing breath and reminded himself that he wasn’t the same bitter, resentful kid who had been spirited out of town in a patrol car.
And Katy Bates sure as hell wasn’t the same lively, optimistic teenage beauty queen he had left behind in a flash of lights and the scream of sirens.
That tormenting thought served to distract Nate from Brown and Jessup’s taunts. Suddenly, his return to his hometown wasn’t about proving something to himself and to the citizens of Coyote Flats. It was about bolstering the spirits of a woman who had all but given up on life. It was time to return the favor Katy had granted him sixteen years ago.
Nate made a pact with himself one mile later. Somehow, some way, he was going to put a smile back on Katy’s lips and return the sparkle to those hypnotic blue eyes that dominated Katy’s pale, thin face. She may have forgotten how to fight back, but Nate sure hadn’t. And by damned, he was going to teach her how it was done!
“My gosh, Aunt Katy, who was that hunk?” Tammy Bates questioned as she propped herself against the office door.
Katy smiled ruefully at her niece, then handed over the letter she had prepared for the city council. “He’s an old friend from high school,” she replied as casually as she knew how.
“Man, and here I thought Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon were incredible to look at! Wow! Talk about tall, dark and handsome!”
Tammy’s love-struck expression was the spitting image of the dreamy smiles Katy had worn a lifetime ago while mooning over Nate Channing. Of course, Katy had had the good sense not to bring up Nate’s name in front of her father, only in front of her friends. Judge Dave Bates had gone ballistic the few times he had caught Katy and Nate together. She had paid dearly for those secret rendezvous, too. Dave had decreed that Nate was off-limits, and her father had dreamed up ways to keep them separated.
Later, when Kate discovered to what drastic extremes her father had abused his power and used his influence to ensure Nate was out of her life for good, she had never forgiven him, had lost all respect for him.
Although Nate seemed determined to strike up a friendship with Katy, she knew it was utterly impossible to mend the broken bridges. She knew that, ultimately, she was the reason Nate had been forced out of town and never permitted to return.
She had also seen Nate’s look of pity when he stared at her. She had nothing to offer the prominent, successful man Nate Channing had become. She was damaged merchandise. Her physical and emotional scars had left her with feelings of inadequacy and unattractiveness that she couldn’t overcome.
Nate deserved better than a mousy female who had been in an emotional coma for years and couldn’t remember how to laugh and smile. He needed someone exciting and attractive, someone who could stand up for herself, someone who could walk without a limp, someone who could look a man squarely in the eye and feel that she was his equal.
Nate had reinvented himself while she had shriveled up inside. She had nothing to offer him now or ever again.
“So, what’s his name, Aunt Katy?” Tammy grilled her.
“Nate Channing.”
Tammy frowned pensively. “I don’t recognize the name. Is his family still around here?”
“No.”
“So he just stopped by to visit you on his way through town?”
Katy shrugged her thin-bladed shoulders. “Please hand-deliver this letter to the city hall. I want the secretary to put my request on the agenda before the council’s meeting.”
“Sure.” Tammy spun around, her ponytail bobbing as she walked away. “But I still think Nate Channing is incredibly good-looking. Maybe you should find out if he’s staying overnight in town and invite him over for supper.”
“Maybe you should stop playing matchmaker and mind your own business,” Katy called after her.
Tammy pirouetted, then grinned unrepentantly at her aunt. “I’ll mind my own business if you will admit that Nate is one great-looking guy.”
“Okay, he’s a knockout,” Katy admitted honestly. “Happy now?”
“I would be if you would chase him down and invite him to supper,” Tammy said before she whipped around and sauntered away.
Katy scrunched into her chair and stared at the blank wall where Nate’s handsome face had superimposed itself. “Too vital, too good-looking. Far too deserving of someone like me,” she said sensibly to herself.
There had been a time when Katy had dreamed of her darkly handsome knight riding back into her life to rescue her from a disastrous marriage and whisk her away from a domineering father who offered no moral support, who constantly sided with her husband. But no one had come to her rescue, and her own attempts to fight for her freedom earned painful blows.
It was too late for her to start fresh, too late to mend all her shattered dreams. This was as good as her life would get, she assured herself fatalistically.
Resolved not to let Nate make the mistake of trying to reestablish their friendship, Katy forced herself to concentrate on her work. For Nate’s sake she had to discourage him from future contact. Katy had nothing to offer him now. Too much water had flooded under the bridge of her life. She had learned to accept what she hadn’t been able to change, and she had learned to center her life around the books that lined the library shelves. The characters on the pages of those books were her friends and acquaintances. They were safe, and she was secure inside the walls of this building.
Eventually, Nate would realize that the happiness and confidences they shared a lifetime ago were like closed chapters in a book. He would look elsewhere for a fulfilling friendship and leave her to the life she had grown comfortable with. It was too late to change, Katy told herself. She wasn’t even going to try.
Nate strode into his new ranch-style home to see Fuzz Havern, the retired sheriff of Coyote County, sprawled on the leather recliner. Fuzz had traded his police-issued pistol for the remote control to the big-screen TV.
Fuzz was all smiles when he glanced up to see Nate stride into the spacious living room. Nate wished he felt half of Fuzz’s obvious pleasure and satisfaction. Unfortunately, seeing what had become of Katy Bates had turned Nate wrong-side-out. He still couldn’t believe Katy had changed so dramatically.
“Pinch me, Nate,” Fuzz insisted. “I swear I must be dreaming all this. How can I possibly be sitting in this luxurious house, living like a king?” Fuzz swiped a meaty hand over his military-style gray hair and beamed in pleasure again. “After all the tense situations in the line of duty, here I am, kicked back, surfing channels and loving every minute of it.” He glanced around the expensively furnished room. “This place is really something else, Nate.”
“I’m glad you agreed to our arrangements,” Nate said as he plopped down on the matching leather sofa. “I told you sixteen years ago that I would repay you for what you did for me.”
Fuzz nodded, remembering. “Yeah, well, all I did was give you the break nobody around here was willing to give you. You took the opportunity I arranged for you, and you ran with it.” He tossed Nate a knowing glance. “I don’t imagine you thought I was doing you any favors those first few months after I left you in Bud Thurston’s charge.”
Nate returned the grin. “No, I didn’t,” he recalled. “That