Her Lone Cowboy. Patricia Forsythe

      None of those things appealed, though. She was too restless, too unsettled and, probably thanks to her brother’s words, thinking too much about Caleb Ransom.

      He did intrigue her. He was closed off, said he didn’t want company or friends. He was scarred on the outside and doubtless on the inside, too, but because of the defensive wall he’d put up, she would never know the nature of his scars, never know him. For despite all good judgment, she sensed a need in him that drew her.

      Laney couldn’t have said why she even cared. He didn’t want her around; not her or her son. He had his own life, his own business, and she had hers.

      Thinking about him made her move to her kitchen window, which looked out onto his land. The late-afternoon sun slanted down, casting long shadows across his pasture.

      So much of her mind hadn’t been taken up with a man since James Carson—and she hadn’t had a pleasant thought about him in years.

      Laney doubted that Caleb was anything like James. No doubt he kept his promises, she thought as she gazed out the window dreamily, and carried through with anything he’d decided to do.

      Taking in abused and abandoned horses was proof of his compassion, his abilities as a horse owner and—

      His cattle were in her yard!