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twelve?”
    â€œWe got married a few months after high school graduation. Robin came along the next year. She’s eleven now.”
    She wondered how long he and his ex had been divorced. Long enough for her to have fallen for another man, married him, and had a baby. Robin had mentioned a baby brother.
    â€œWant to try a trot, see how it goes?” Dave asked.
    â€œYou bet.” Though Cassidy wasn’t into long-term planning, likely she’d stay in Caribou Crossing through the summer, so there’d be time to find out more about this intriguing man. Who knew, some of that learning might even come from pillow talk!
    He eased his horse forward and hers followed along, the dog running beside them.
    It took a few bone-rattling moments to get the feel of the trot, but she did better with the lope and let out a whoop of exhilaration. When Dave slowed the pace, she said, “This is exactly what I needed. A real change of pace.”
    â€œYou’re not talking about going from a trot to a lope, are you?”
    â€œVancouver to Caribou Crossing. Sports bars and clubbing to horses and sweet-smelling wild roses.” A scuzzy boss to a good man like Dave. A bunch of metrosexual guys she didn’t find sexy to an effortlessly masculine one like the rider atop the gorgeous palomino.
    â€œWelcome to my world.” He gestured expansively.
    â€œIt’s lovely.” Gazing ahead to where rolling hills rose to rocky outcroppings, she sucked in a deep breath of air that smelled of grass, sunshine, horse, dust.
    â€œI couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. But you, I gather you’ve got a gypsy spirit?”
    â€œTotally. There’s so much to see and do. I grew up in Victoria, spent some time in Toronto. After high school—when you were getting married—I was in Europe. My mom was there with her latest guy.” She wrinkled her nose, remembering his high-handed ways. “I didn’t get along with him, so I left and traveled around on my own.”
    â€œOn your own in Europe? At what, seventeen, eighteen?”
    â€œJust turned eighteen when I left Mom’s house.”
    â€œIf Robin tried to do that, it’d kill me.” He snorted. “Or she’d kill me, because I’d make her call me three times a day.”
    â€œControl freak?”
    â€œOnly when it comes to her safety.”
    â€œGramps was a bit like that.” He’d worried about her, made her report in. It had felt like he didn’t trust her to look after herself. But when he said he did it because he loved her, it was hard to get too resentful. In fact, after he died when she was fifteen, she’d missed his fussing. Missed him. A lot. “But my parents liked me and my brother to be independent.” They loved her and JJ in their own way, but their personal dramas always came first.
    â€œTraveling Europe on your own is pretty independent.”
    â€œMan, was it amazing. All these new experiences! Places, people, languages, food. I loved it. Eventually I came back to North America, but I kept up with the traveling. I’ve been across Canada and I’ve visited lots of the States.”
    He shook his head bemusedly. “You figure on ever settling down?”
    â€œNah.” Anytime she’d thought she’d had a home, it had proved to be an illusion—and learning that had hurt. No, she wasn’t destined to set down roots, so she found joy in variety. She tilted her head to glance sideways at him. “Do you ever get itchy feet? Imagine living somewhere else, or even just visiting?”
    He shrugged. “Not really. Oh, it’s nice to go to Vancouver occasionally, eat in a different restaurant, go to the theatre or a game. But”—another of those wry grins—“even though it makes me sound like a total stick in the mud, everything I want is here.”
    â€œEverything?”
    One of those mysterious shadows crossed his face.