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was simply amazing. And she was suddenly hurt that he had a past that wouldn’t allow him to lose his heart because it was dawning on her that she wanted it. She wanted to learn everything there was to know about him. She wanted to smooth away the hard lines from that dark face and make him laugh. She wondered if he even knew how to laugh, with all the tragedy he’d known.
    Dr. Peters examined Blake’s leg at the small clinic and set it, commending Hollister’s knowledgeable first aid treatment as he put on a thick plaster cast. He wrote Maggie a prescription for pain pills to give the boy, praised him on his bravery and told him when to come back to have the cast removed.
    Maggie didn’t even think about it until they’d stopped by the pharmacy to get the prescription and were on the way back up the mountain. They’d be back in Tucson when that cast had to come off. She’d have to be back at work, but how could she possibly send Blake back to military school? She frowned, gnawing her lower lip as the thought of leaving the ranch began to make her feel sick.
    “Reaction,” Hollister mused, watching her. She was sitting in the passenger seat now, because Blake had a dose of sedative in him and was almost asleep on the back seat. “Don’t worry. I wish I had a nickel for every broken bone I’ve set over the years. He’ll be fine.”
    “What?” she asked quietly.
    “Now that it’s all over you’re going green, Mrs. Jeffries,” he murmured dryly. He was smoking a cigarette, the acrid smell of it filling the cab as he easily handled the sliding motion of the Bronco on a patch of hard ice and whipped it around the next horrible curve as they wound back up to the cabin.
    “I think I’m entitled,” she said gently and smiled at him.
    His dark eyes studied that smile, intent on her soft mouth, and his thick eyebrows drew together. “Yes,” he said after a minute, dragging his eyes back to the road. “I guess you are.”
    “Don’t you ever smile?” she asked suddenly, the words popping out before she could stop them.
    He didn’t look at her. “Not often. Not anymore.”
    She wanted to say more. She wanted to ask him about the accident. She wanted to tell him that he shouldn’t live in the past. But she didn’t have that right, and she was shocked at her own forwardness. She loved her own privacy. It was odd that she should feel free to infringe on his.
    She blushed as she looked out the window at the distant majesty of the mountains all around, blue and white against the gray sky.
    “Now what is it?” he asked.
    She shifted restlessly. “Nothing.”
    “You colored.”
    He saw too much. “I wanted to thank you for what you’ve done,” she said. “You…make it difficult.”
    “I don’t want thanks,” he said simply. He lifted the cigarette to his chiseled lips. “Up here, we look out for each other. It’s how we survive.”
    “I can’t imagine you letting anybody look out for you,” she sighed.
    He glanced at her with both eyebrows arched.
    She shivered, pulling her jacket closer. “Well, I can’t,” she said doggedly, and her silvery eyes glinted at him.
    The mustache twitched, and his dark gaze had a twinkle in it as he turned his attention back to the road. “I’m glad the boy was all right.”
    “Yes, so am I.” She shivered again. “Just thinking about that wolf…”
    They were at the cabin now. He stopped the Bronco and cut off the engine, turning to look at her. It was almost dark, and in the going light he could see the strain in her face, the worry darkening her eyes. A woman alone with a boy was hard going, especially when she was their only support. He wondered if she’d ever let herself lean on a man since the death of her husband and figured that she probably hadn’t.
    “He’s all right,” he reminded her.
    “No thanks to me,” she laughed huskily and heard her own voice break.
    His chin lifted while he studied her. “Come here,” he said, catching her arm