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eyes took on a glaze of contentment. His jaw relaxed as he chewed. The other FBI agent was likewise transported.
    “These are great,” Burke said. “Ma’am, you’ve got to come back tomorrow.”
    Polly pinched his cheek. Actually pinched Burke’s cheek! Carolyn couldn’t believe that Special Agent I’m-In-Charge would stand for such familiarity. Then she remembered his kiss on her forehead. Underneath the tough exterior, he was kind of a marshmallow.
    “I’ll be back in time to throw together some breakfast.” Polly turned to Carolyn. “The guest bedrooms are made up with fresh sheets and towels. Call me if you need anything else tonight. G’night, y’all.”
    She headed out of the kitchen toward the front door.
    “Nice woman,” Burke said. “Must have been good for you to have Polly around while you were growing up. She’s real motherly.”
    “I have a mother,” Carolyn said quickly. “Her name is Andrea. She and my father divorced when I was seven.”
    “Does she live around here?”
    Thinking of her stylish mother choosing to stay in rural Colorado amused Carolyn. “Not hardly. She runs an artgallery in Manhattan where she lives with her second husband and my twelve-year-old half sister.”
    “Big change in lifestyle.”
    “Yeah, she traded in her cowgirl boots for designer stilettos.”
    Carolyn regretted that she hadn’t spent more time with her mom when she was growing up. Andrea had wanted to take her and Dylan with her when she left, but they both chose the ranch. It was their home, their heritage. “I should call Mom and tell her what’s going on.”
    “Tomorrow is soon enough,” Burke said.
    He was probably right. There was nothing her mother could do from New York, and Carolyn had more pressing concerns for tonight. “I need to get on the phone with my financial officers. And my bankers. I’ve got to start putting together the money for the kidnappers. Maybe I should—”
    “Later,” Burke said. “First, I want to know more about Sam Logan.”
    “Like what?” The sugar rush from Polly’s raisin rolls had energized her. The inside of her head churned with dozens of things she needed to handle ASAP. “There’s not much to tell.”
    “When you broke up with him were there hard feelings?”
    “Some,” she admitted. “It was a long time ago, right after grad school. I’d come back to the ranch and I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my pretty new MBA.”
    For lack of any other plan, she’d started dating Logan, who was a great guy to party with—handsome, charming and sexy. When their relationship started to get serious, she was uncomfortable. Her father, who had been ailing, sided with Logan, telling Carolyn it was high time she settled down.
    But she’d just returned from school in New York where she had a chance to watch her career-focused mother. The corporate lifestyle appealed to Carolyn, and she figured shehad the rest of her life to make babies. Now, almost ten years later, she wondered if she’d waited too long.
    “Logan wasn’t the right guy for me.” She exhaled a sigh. “And I wasn’t the barefoot-and-pregnant type of woman he was looking for.”
    “Do you think he holds a grudge?”
    Taken aback, she grasped what he was suggesting. “If you think Logan kidnapped Nicole to get back at me, you’re wrong. His ego is too big to realize that I was dumping him as much as he was dumping me.”
    “He could be nursing bad feelings toward you.”
    True, her former boyfriend had a petty streak. “He wouldn’t sabotage the ranch. Our cattle-raising process is natural and organic. We’re not his enemy.”
    “Are you sure about that?” Burke raised an eyebrow. “Carlisle Ranch is an international corporation. Big business. That’s what he hates.”
    Burke’s logic made a certain amount of sense. The success of her family’s business might be a slap in the face to a loser like Sam Logan.
    I T WAS AFTER MIDNIGHT when Burke and his men