Renegade Father by RaeAnne Thayne Page B

his innumerable lessons. But Charlie was gone, so it had to be someone else. Maybe the same person who had taken that photograph and slipped it under her door.
    Dolly’s poisoning forced her to rethink her conclusion that the photo was an isolated event, a prank. A chill climbed up her spine again. Were the two incidents related? She couldn’t ignore the possibility, not now.
    But what could anybody hope to gain, other then terrorizing her? It was a sobering thought, that she might have enemies somewhere out there she wasn’t even aware of.
    Joe made a low noise in his sleep and she shifted her gaze to him, welcoming the diversion from the ugliness of her thoughts.
    He looked so different in sleep, more like the quiet boy she had loved as a child than the hard, forbidding man he had become.
    He had taken off his boots some time in the night and he looked strangely vulnerable in his thick wool socks. The right one had a little hole in the toe and she wished she could think of some way to offer to fix it without offending him.
    She didn’t have the chance to watch him in this kind of unguarded moment very often. After a furtive glance under her eyelashes to make sure he still slept soundly, she decided to allow herself this one harmless indulgence.
    And it was definitely an indulgence. Like eating a whole box of chocolates by herself or taking Rio up the High Lonesome trail on a summer day just for the sheer joy of it.
    This, though. This was worlds better than any of her other guilty pleasures. Joe was raw, masculine beauty,all chiseled features and hard-hewn man, and she loved looking at him.
    She wasn’t going to have many more opportunities like this. The days seemed to be slipping away from her—he would be taking his new job in less than five weeks now.
    It wasn’t like she would never see him again—she could comfort herself with that—but at the same time she knew that any encounters would be sporadic and painfully brief.
    Her stomach trembled whenever she thought about how gray and colorless her days would be without him. He would leave a huge, jagged tear in the fabric of her life.
    Joe had been part of her existence as long as she could remember. Most of her best memories were tied up with him—riding fence together, dry-fly fishing the Madison, listening to him recite the stories of his people he learned from his mother.
    She wanted him to share those stories with her children. Rubbing at her stomach as if she could take away the ache there, she sighed softly. It was only a quiet sound but it was enough to wake him. He had always been a fitful sleeper and his time in prison had only heightened that. Now he went from sleep to consciousness instantly, his long dark eyelashes opening without so much as a flutter.
    He gazed at her then at the dog, then muttered an uncharacteristically pungent oath. “I must have fallen asleep.”
    She hid a smile at the self-condemnation in his tone. “Looks that way.”
    â€œIs Dolly all right?” He whispered so he didn’t disturb the dog.
    â€œSleeping soundly,” she whispered back. “Graham’s treatment seems to have worked.”
    He raked a hand through his thick, dark hair. “I’m sorry, Annie. I was supposed to be watching her, not snoozing away.”
    She arched an eyebrow at him. “You were supposed to wake me up so I could take a turn at nurse duty instead of trying to stay up all night by yourself.”
    â€œI didn’t have the heart to wake you. Not when you were snoring away so enthusiastically.”
    Her heart flip-flopped in her chest at the familiar teasing grin she rarely saw anymore. Sweet Lord, she had missed it, so much that she didn’t even mind the old jibe. He and Colt always used to try to convince her she made enough noise to wake the dead.
    â€œI do not snore,” she said primly.
    His gaze shifted to her pursed mouth, then caught there. To her shock, a