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make any difference at all.
    She picked up the roll of masking tape and briskly sealed the box.

BOOK TWO
Torn Asunder

CHAPTER 3
    R oanna bounced out of bed with the dawn, hurrying to brush her teeth and drag her hands through her hair, then scrambling into jeans and a T-shirt. She grabbed her boots and socks on the way out the door and ran barefoot down the stairs. Webb was driving up to Nashville, and she wanted to see him before he left. She didn’t have any particular reason other than that she seized every opportunity to have a few private minutes with him, precious seconds when his attention, his smiles, were only for her.
    Even at five o’clock in the morning, Grandmother would have had her breakfast in the morning room, but Roanna didn’t even pause there on her way to the kitchen. Webb, while thoroughly comfortable with the wealth that was at his disposal, didn’t give a snap of his finger for appearances. He would be scrounging around in the kitchen, preparing his own breakfast since Tansy didn’t come to work until six, then eating it at the kitchen table.
    She burst through the door, and as she had expected, Webb was there. He hadn’t bothered with the table and was instead leaning against the cabinet while he munched on a jelly-spread slice of toast. A cup of coffee steamed gentlybeside his hand. As soon as he saw her, he turned and dropped another slice of bread into the toaster.
    â€œI’m not hungry,” she said, poking her head into the huge double-doored refrigerator to find the orange juice.
    â€œYou never are,” he returned equably. “Eat anyway.” Her lack of appetite was why, at seventeen, she was still skinny and barely developed. That and the fact that Roanna never simply
walked
anywhere. She was a perpetual motion machine: she skipped, she bounded, occasionally she even turned cartwheels. At least, over the years, she had finally settled down enough to sleep in the same bed every night, and he no longer had to search for her every morning.
    Because it was Webb who’d made the toast, she ate it, though she rejected the jelly. He poured a cup of coffee for her, and she stood beside him, munching dry toast and alternately sipping orange juice and coffee, and felt contentment glowing warmly deep in her middle. This was all she asked out of life: to be alone with Webb. And to work with the horses, of course.
    She gently inhaled, drawing in the delicious scents of his understated cologne and the clean, slight muskiness of his skin, all mingled with the aroma of the coffee. Her awareness of him was so intense it was almost painful, but she lived for these moments.
    She eyed him over the rim of her cup, her whiskey brown eyes glinting with mischief. “The timing of this trip to Nashville is pretty suspicious,” she teased. “I think you just want to get away from the house.”
    He grinned, and her heart flip-flopped. She seldom saw that cheerful grin any more; he was so busy that he didn’t have time for anything but work, as Jessie consistently, relentlessly complained. His cool green eyes warmed when he smiled, and the lazy charm of his grin could stop traffic. The laziness was deceptive, though; Webb worked hours that would have exhausted most men.
    â€œI didn’t plan it,” he protested, then admitted, “but I jumped at the chance. I guess you’re going to stay in the stables all day.”
    She nodded. Grandmother’s sister and her husband, Aunt Gloria and Uncle Harlan, were moving in today, and Roanna wanted to be as far from the house as possible. Aunt Gloria was her least favorite of aunts, and she didn’t care much for Uncle Harlan either.
    â€œHe’s a know-it-all,” she grumbled. “And she’s a pain in the—”
    â€œRo,” he said warningly, drawing out the single syllable. Only he ever called her by the abbreviation of her name. It was one more tiny connection between them for