"Yeah, I noticed that."
Shane's interest was piqued. "When?"
"I was over there a couple of days ago. Had a little legal business."
"Oh." Shane wiggled his eyebrows. "Privileged communication?''
"That's right." Jared hauled over another bale and nipped the twine. "What's the word on her?"
"There isn't much of anything. From what I get, she was in the Frederick area, saw the ad for the cabin in the paper down there. Then she blew into town, snapped up the property, put her kid in school and closed herself off on her little hill. It's driving Mrs. Metz crazy."
"I bet. If Mrs. Metz, queen of the grapevine, can't get any gossip on her, nobody can."
"If you're handling some legal deal for her, you ought to be able to shake something loose."
"She's not a client," Jared said, and left it at that. "The boy comes around here?"
"Now and again. He and Connor."
"An odd pairing."
"It's nice seeing them togetner. Bry's a pistol, let me tell you. He's got a million questions, opinions, arguments." Shane lifted a brow. "Reminds me of somebody."
"That so?"
"Dad always said if there were two opinions on one subject, you'd have both of them. The kid's like that. And he makes Connor laugh. It's good to hear."
"The boy hasn't had enough to laugh about, not with a father like Joe Dolin."
Shane grunted, gathering up discarded twine. "Well, Dolin's behind bars and out of the picture." Shane stepped back, checking over his herd and the land beyond. "He's not going to be beating up on Cassie anymore, or terrorizing those kids. The divorce going to be final soon?"
"We should have a final decree within sixty days."
"Can't be soon enough. I have to see to the hogs. You want to get another bale out of the barn?"
"Sure."
Shane headed over to the pen, prepared to mix feed. At the sight of him, the fat pigs began to stir and snort. "Yeah, Daddy's here, boys and girls."
"He talks to them all the time," Bryan announced from behind them.
"They talk right back." With a grin, Shane turned, and saw that the boy wasn't alone.
Savannah stood with one hand on her son's shoulder and an easy smile. Her hair was loose, falling like black rain over the shoulders of a battered denim jacket. Shane decided the pigs could wait, and leaned on the fence.
"Good morning."
"Good morning." She stepped forward, looked into the pen. "They look hungry."
"They're always hungry. That's why we call them pigs."
She laughed and propped a foot on the bottom rung of the fence. She was a woman used to the sight, sound and smell of animals. "That one there certainly looks well fed."
He shifted closer so he could enjoy the scent of her hair. "She's full of piglets. I'll have to separate her soon."
"Spring on the farm," she murmured. "So, who's the daddy?"
"That smug-looking hog over there."
"Ah, the one who's ignoring her. Typical." Still smiling, she tossed back her hair. "We're here on a mission, Mr. MacKade."
"Shane."
"Shane. Rumor is, you've got kittens."
Shane grinned down at Bryan. "Talked her into it, huh?"
All innocence, Bryan shrugged, but his quick, triumphant grin betrayed him. "She needs company when I'm at school."
"That's a good one. They're in the barn. I'll show you."
"No." To stop him, Savannah put a hand on his arm. There was a glint in her eyes that told him she knew exactly where his thoughts were heading. "We won't interrupt your work. Your pigs are waiting, and I'm sure Bryan knows exactly where to find the kittens."
"Sure I do. Come on, Mom." He had her by the hand, tugging. "They're really cool. Shane's got all kinds of neat animals," Bryan told her.
"Mm-hmm..." With a last amused glance, she let herself be hauled away. "Magnificent animals." And, she thought as she watched Jared stride out of the barn with a bale over his shoulder, here was another one now.
His eyes met hers, held, as he stopped, tossed the bale down. The suit had been deceiving, she realized. Though he hadn't looked soft in it, he'd looked elegant. There was nothing elegant about the man now.
He was all muscle.
. If she'd been a lesser woman, her mouth might have watered.
Instead, she inclined her head and spoke coolly. "Mr. MacKade."
"Ms. Morningstar." His tone was just as cool. But it took a focused effort to unknot the tension in his stomach. "Hi, Bryan."
"I didn't know you worked here," Bryan began. "I've never seen you working here."
"Now and again."
"How come you were wearing a suit?" he asked. "Shane never wears a suit."
"Not unless you knock him unconscious first." When the boy grinned, Jared noticed a gap in his teeth that hadn't been there the day before. "Lose something?"
Proudly Bryan pressed his tongue in the gap. "It came out this morning. It's good for spitting."
"I used to hold the record around here. Nine feet, three inches. Without the wind."
Impressed, and challenged, Bryan worked up saliva in his mouth, concentrated and let it fly. Jared pursed his lips, nodded. "Not bad."
"I can do better than that."
"You're one of the tops in your division, Bry," Savannah said dryly. "But Mr. MacKade has work to do, and we're supposed to be looking at kittens."
"Yeah, they're right in here." He took off into the barn at a run. Savannah followed more slowly.
"Nine feet?" she murmured, with a glance over her shoulder.
"And three inches."
"You surprise me, Mr. MacKade."
She had a way of sauntering on those long legs, he thought, that gave a man's eyes a mind of their own. After a quick internal debate, he gave up and went in after her.
"Aren't they great?" Bryan plopped right down in the hay beside the litter of sleeping kittens and their very bored-looking mama. "They have to stay with her for weeks and weeks." Very gently, he stroked a fingertip over the downy head of a smoke-gray kitten. "But then we can take one."
She couldn't help it. Savannah went soft all over. "Oh, they're so tiny." Crouching down, she gave in to the need and lifted one carefully into her hand. "Look, Bry, it fits right in my palm. Oh, aren't you sweet?" Murmuring, she nuzzled her face against the fur. "Aren't you pretty?"
"I like this one best." Bryan continued to stroke the tiny gray bundle. "I'm going to call him Cal. Like for Cal Ripkin."
"Oh." The soft orange ball in her hand stirred and mewed thinly. Her heart was lost. "All right. The gray one."
"You could take two." Jared stepped into the stall. Her face, he thought, was an open book. "It's nice for them to have company."
"Two?" The idea burst like a thousand watts in Bryan's brain. "Yeah, Mom, we'll take two. One would be lonely!"
"Bry-"
"And it wouldn't be any more trouble. We've got lots of room now. Cal's going to want somebody to play with, to hang around with."
"Thanks, MacKade."
"My pleasure."
"And anyway," Bryan went on, because he'd come out of his own excitement long enough to see the way his mother was cuddling the orange kitten, "this way we could each pick one. That's the fair way, right?"
Smiling, Bryan reached out to brush his finger over the orange kitten. "He likes you. See, he's trying to lick your hand."
"He's hungry," Savannah told him, but she knew there was no possible way she was going to be able to resist the little bundle rooting in her hand. "I suppose they would be company for each other."
"All right, Mom!" Bryan sprang up, kissed her without any of the embarrassment many nine-year-old boys might feel. "I'm going to tell Shane which ones are ours."
With a clatter of feet, Bryan dashed out of the barn.
"You know you wanted it," Jared said.
"I'm old enough to know I can't have everything I want." But she sighed and set the kitten down so that it could join its siblings in a morning snack. "But two cats can't be that much more trouble than one."
She started to rise, flicking a glance upward when Jared put a hand under her arm and helped her up. "Thanks." She stepped around him and headed for the light. "So, are you a farm boy moonlighting as a lawyer, or a lawyer moonlighting as a farm boy?"