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mean.”
    Of course she did. Opening that can of worms wasn’t worth the turmoil. Not when there couldn’t be anything more between them than business , and soon, once she went back to Wyoming, nothing. “You think a lot of yourself if you’re implying that I didn’t put you out of my heart years ago.” She lifted her chin. “The only thing between you and me right now is wanting what’s best for Agate Falls, even if we don’t have the same ideas in mind.”
    “I’m the boss, Carrie.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “Fifty-five percent. That’s how much stake I hold in Agate Falls, which means, technically, I own it.” He cracked the can and took a drink. “Look, I won’t keep anything from you. You’re a part of Agate Falls, and…you’re important.”
    She shrugged off his comment, though it gave her a trickle of warmth. The flash of angst she’d had about this whole thing suddenly seemed like an overinflated knee-jerk reaction. In the big picture, she didn’t have much say in how things went. She lived a state away, had her own life off the ranch. What her dad and Levi decided to do wouldn’t be ruled by her nostalgia and need to hang on.
    Her reluctance to let go and the ever-growing secret wish that she could stay were having a tug-of-war. It was hard to let go of the past when she was so scared about her future. Still, it was her problem. Not Levi’s.
    Deflated, she could only nod. “Thank you.” Feeling incredibly silly, she moved to go, but his voice stopped her.
    “Look, what you did for me the other night…the leg thing. Thank you.”
    “You’re welcome.” In the four years she’d been working as a massage therapist, she’d never been as grateful for her skills as she had the other night. Easing Levi out of his misery had been profoundly satisfying. Witnessing his complete and utter agony had pulled a primal instinct from somewhere inside her to fix it.
    “How did you know what to do?”
    “Hmmm?” She turned to look at him while moving farther away from the sunlight. Dots and shards of light danced inside her right eye. She closed her eyes and pressed fingers to her lids, cursing, for the millionth time, this change that was happening to her.
    “Oh, I’m a chiropractic assistant. I do massage, sometimes.”
    When she opened her eyes, she noticed he was watching her intently…too intently. “I’ve had massages before.”
    “Oh?”
    “As part of my therapy. But none of them ever came close to what you did.” Levi moved closer. “It was a little magical, actually.”
    “Magical,” she repeated, watching him advance. The tension between them was both sweet and disconcerting, and she wished the slightly awkward, uncomfortable thing would go away. Then again, it helped remind her that she wasn’t here on a personal level.
    Time had given the lines and edges of his face a maturity that heightened his masculine appeal. And no doubt the military had provided him with the razor-sharp and completely breath-stealing expression. Even in the dimmer cast of light, his eyes glowed with intensity that shot a throb between her legs and a flicker of apprehension in her breast.
    He stopped, close enough that heat radiated from his chest to hers. Around his neck, a silver chain disappeared beneath his shirt. It didn’t take much to guess what the chain held, and she wanted to see. She touched her fingertips to his collarbone, exhaling as if the contact were the fuel she needed to breathe, tracing the chain and slowly pulling it until a single dog tag slid up from beneath the fabric.
    His name was stamped into it, the metal tarnished on one edge as if it had been rubbed repeatedly. The tag rested in her palm, warm from his body heat. One small, thin piece of metal represented the different paths they’d taken. She’d held his tags before, though he wouldn’t remember. She’d thought then, as she did now, what a strong, admirable man he was. Levi Haywood was a damn good man.
    She let go, and the