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out for holidays or anything that could possibly be construed as a special occasion, it happened often. Even in the rare month without a red-letter day on its calendar page, it seemed there was always a picnic, a barbecue, a trail ride, a potluck or some kind of party.
    Most of the time, Carolyn attended the shindigs and did her best to have fun, but Brody was inevitably somewhere around, seldom speaking to her, or even making eye contact, but there, nonetheless, a quiet but dynamic presence she had to work hard to ignore.
    And just doing that much required a level of concentration tantamount to walking barefoot over hot coals, like a participant in some high-powered seminar.
    Frankly, Carolyn resented having to make the effort but, besides pulling up stakes and leaving town herself, she didn’t seem to have any options.
    She kept waiting to get over Brody.
    Get over the hurt.
    Get over caring about him.
    So far, it hadn’t happened.
    Carolyn drew the scenery into her mind and spirit the way she drew breath into her lungs.
    A hawk soared overhead, riding an invisible current of air.
    Small animals rustled through the grass.
    And beneath it all, Carolyn heard the steady tick-ticktick of her biological clock.
    At thirty-two and counting, she wasn’t getting any younger.
    How long could she afford to wait around for fate to make her dreams of a home and a family come true?
    She leaned forward to pat Blossom’s long, sweaty neck. Shook her head in silent answer to her own question.
    She’d wasted enough time waiting around for the proverbial prince to ride up on a snow-white steed and whisk her away to Happily-Ever-After Land.
    Okay, sure, she’d hoped a grand passion would be part of the package. But she’d had that with Brody Creed, hadn’t she—for a whole week and a half?
    And where had it gotten her? Heartbreak Hotel, that was where.
    Obviously, love wasn’t going to just happen to her, like in all those fairy tales she’d lost herself in as a child. It happened to some people—Tricia and Conner and a few others—but those were probably flukes.
    Bottom line, she could wish all she wanted, but the fulfillment of said wishes was her own responsibility. Nobody was going to wave a magic wand and make things happen for her.
    It was time to do something, time to take action.
    Gently, she drew back on the reins so Blossom would stop grazing and continued the solitary trail ride, thinking as she went.
    She’d been resistant to the idea of signing up for one of those online dating services, afraid of attracting, oh, say, a serial killer, or a bigamist, or some sort of con man set to make an appearance on America’s Most Wanted . In light of a statistic she’d recently come across—that twenty percent of all romantic relationships begin via a matchmaking website of some sort—she was willing to reconsider.
    Or, more properly, she was willing to be willing to reconsider.
    Denver was probably full of nice men looking for a partner. Maybe there were even a few eligible guys right there in Lonesome Bend.
    It wasn’t as if she needed a doctor, a lawyer, or an Indian chief. She’d settle for a mature man, a grown-up with a sense of humor and a steady job.
    The word settle immediately snagged like a hook in the center of her chest.
    She drew a few deep breaths as she and Blossom started back toward Kim and Davis’s barn, traveling slowly. She wasn’t signing up to be a mail-order bride, she reminded herself. Posting her picture and a brief bio online wasn’t a lifelong commitment, but just a way of testing the water.
    “You can do this,” she told herself firmly.
    Now, all she had to do was start believing her own slogan.

CHAPTER THREE
     
    B RODY GAZED WISTFULLY toward his half-finished house—the barn had stalls and a roof roughed in, so Moonshine had shelter, at least—and swung down out of the saddle.
    It was twilight—the loneliest time of all.
    In town and out there in the countryside, where there were a