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Hoping that the strain of the night didn’t show on her face, Dani looked up and smiled at her son. “Good morning,” she said as she placed a platter of pancakes in front of him.

“Mornin’.” He poured syrup on his pancakes before lifting his eyes to stare at his mother. “What was that guy doin’ here last night?”

Dani felt her back stiffen, but managed to pour a cup of coffee with steady hands, blow across the hot liquid, and meet her son’s curious gaze. “Chase?”

“If he’s that new guy who works for Caleb Johnson.”

“One and the same,” Dani admitted pensively. Thinking back to her intimate conversation with Chase on the back porch, Dani blushed and took a sip from her mug. “I didn’t know you were awake.”

“I couldn’t sleep. My window was open and I heard him talkin’ to you. What’d he want?”

Dani lifted her brows. “Didn’t you hear that, too?”

“I couldn’t hear what you said. Too much noise because of the rain. I just heard voices.”

Thank God.

“But I knew he was here.” He looked away from Dani and concentrated on the thick stack of pancakes and a bowl of peaches Dani had set on the ancient table.

“How?”

“Recognized his voice.”

Her feelings in an emotional tangle, Dani sat across from her son and toyed with her breakfast. She knew that she couldn’t trust Chase, but there was something about the man, something earthy and seductive, that she couldn’t forget. She glanced out the window toward the creek where Chase and at least one other man were working, and wondered again why he’d come up to her house in the middle of the rainshower.

“Mom?”

“What?” Dani turned her attention back to her son and realized he was waiting for an explanation. His dark eyes were round with concern. “Don’t worry about Chase,” she said, hoping to put Cody’s worries to rest. “He stopped by last night because he wants my permission to work on the creek where it cuts through our property.”

“Why?”

Dani lifted a shoulder. “Beats me . . . Caleb probably asked him to, I suppose.”

Cody made a sound of disgust and finished his pancakes. He took a long swallow of his milk, watched his mother over his glass and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“More?”

“Naw.”

“Next time, use your napkin,” she said automatically. She studied her son as Cody scraped his chair back from the table and carried his dishes to the sink.

How like his father Cody looked; the same curly dark brown hair and deep brown eyes. Except for the lack of cynicism twisting the corners of his mouth and the honest warmth of his smile, Cody was growing up to be the spitting image of Blake.

“Why’re you hanging out with one of Caleb Johnson’s men?”

“Hanging out with him?” Dani repeated with a laugh. “I’m not.”

Hopping up on the counter and swinging his legs, Cody looked at his mother and frowned. “But you don’t hate him—not the way you hate the rest of Johnson’s men.”

“I don’t hate anyone. Not even Caleb Johnson. As for Chase, I don’t even know him.”

“Doesn’t matter. You like him.”

Dani smiled and finished her coffee.

“You do like him, don’t you?”

“It’s not a question of liking him; I just don’t know him.”

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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