Rocky Mountain Miracle by Christine Feehan

elusive there. Maia heard it, but couldn’t grasp it. “Have you always been close to Jase?”
    â€œWe met when I was given guardianship over him. We had different mothers, and I didn’t know he existed until I was contacted by the private investigators the lawyers hired to find me.”
    â€œHow could you not know you had a brother?”
    Cole shrugged. “I checked out of that life a long time ago. When the lawyers told me about Jase, I was shocked.” He frowned. “The snow’s really coming down. I left Jase out there with Al, my foreman, to watch over him.”
    â€œWeren’t you afraid you’d get caught in town?”
    â€œI knew the storm was coming, but I thought I had a couple of more hours before it really hit. I’d never allow Jase to spend the night alone there, so one way or another, I would have gotten back to the ranch.”
    Maia heard the note of honesty, of absolute determination in his voice, and she believed him. Cole was such a deceptive mixture. He’d come to the bar hunting for sex. He made no apologies for it and cared little what others thought of him. He exuded complete confidence, even a coldness, yet there were terrible shadows in his eyes. And there was Jase. He barely knew the teenager, yet he looked out for him with a fierce protectiveness she would never have credited him with having. She believed Cole would have tried to walk back to the ranch rather than leave the boy alone with just the foreman. Things didn’t add up.
    â€œDo you have children of your own?” she asked.
    â€œWhat do you think?”
    â€œI think you’d never let anyone get that close to you. You must have been terrified when you were named guardian to this boy. Why did you say you’d do it?”
    â€œWhat is it they all say? So I can murder him and get all the money instead of sharing it with a kid.”
    â€œYou don’t even change expression when you hand out your nonsense. Don’t worry, Steele, I don’t want to know your deep dark secrets.”
    â€œYou think I have secrets? I thought my life was an open book. Haven’t the gossips given you the scoop on me?” The snow was nearly blinding him as he maneuvered the road. At the rate it was coming down, he wasn’t certain they would make it to the ranch before the road became impassable. Even if he could call Al to bring out the snowplow, he wasn’t all that certain it would do anygood. They were no longer in front of the storm but in the thick of it.
    â€œDon’t you have secrets? Doesn’t everyone?” Maia wanted to keep talking. She would have chosen to sit it out rather than continue driving. It was becoming difficult to see more than a foot in front of the truck.
    â€œEven you, Doc? Do you have secrets as well? You’re always laughing and seem so carefree, yet you move from place to place, no home, nothing permanent in your life. No boyfriend who’ll get upset when you move on.”
    â€œWho said I don’t have a boyfriend? And I usually fill in for the same vets, so I make a lot of friends along the way.”
    â€œYou don’t have a boyfriend, or you wouldn’t have let me get away with putting my hands on you while we were dancing. You aren’t that kind of woman.”
    Shocked, she turned toward him, but he was staring out the window into the driving snow. “A compliment. Who would have thought?” Maia burrowed deeper into his jacket. The inside of the car was warm enough, but his jacket gave her a sense of security. She could smell his scent, masculine and outdoorsy, the spice of his aftershave. He drove with the same confidence he did everything, and it helped ease her anxiety a bit, but they seemed to be enfolded in a white, silent world. She wished he’d play music just to keep her nerves from jangling. She had nothing else to hang on to but their conversation. And he wasn’t comfortable with making