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  “Fine, but Peyton’s not allowed over there again.” Chelsea jabbed the steering wheel’s phone button, ending their conversation.

  Fifteen minutes later, she pulled into their driveway and parked, almost forgetting to unfasten her seat belt as she got out. How dare Tori allow an ex-convict near her nine-year-old daughter. She shoved her key in the front door so hard, she was surprised when it didn’t snap in half. Peyton grabbed the mail from the box before following her into the house. Not bothering to even take off her jacket, Chelsea dropped her briefcase and bag on the floor and beelined for her desk on the other side of their small craftsman-style living room.

  Answers. She needed answers.

  She flipped open her laptop and fumbled for the power button. Just great. Now she had to tell her daughter she couldn’t go to Missy’s anymore. She hated to leave her in the after-school program and dreaded the fallout. Peyton was crazy about the sanctuary’s rescued horses and donkeys. They fed her dream to become an equine vet one day. She started talking about them at breakfast and didn’t stop until her head hit the pillow at night. Hearing loss wouldn’t hold her child back from reaching for the stars. Now Chelsea had to be the bad guy and take away the thing her daughter loved most.

  They hadn’t had these problems when they’d lived in Helena. Her parents had watched Peyton every day after school, and most nights they’d had dinner over there too. It had been the perfect arrangement until the deaf school closed. Without another school nearby, Chelsea had been forced to move. When a law firm in Saddle Ridge near the highest-rated deaf school in the state made her a lucrative offer, she jumped on it. The four-hundred-mile move away from family and the only place they’d ever lived had been tough on Peyton. It took a while for the two of them to adjust, but after renting an apartment for a few months, they’d finally found a home and settled into a solid routine...until today.

  “Mama? Are you mad at me?”

  She closed her eyes and gripped the edge of the desk. Peyton was too young to understand Chelsea’s anger and fear. She turned to her and signed, “No, sweetheart. I’m not mad at you. I love you.” Chelsea needed a minute alone to think. “Do you want to help me make dinner tonight?”

  “Can we have homemade pizza?” Peyton signed, restoring her faith that her daughter had paid attention to their earlier conversation.

  “The dough takes a long time to rise. Do you really want to wait that long?”

  “I had a snack at Missy’s house. Please, Mama. We haven’t made it in months.”

  “Okay, you’re in charge of the menu tonight. Go find the recipe and get all the ingredients ready. I’ll be in to help you in a few minutes.”

  Peyton spun around and skipped out of the room, giving Chelsea a chance to do a little research on Ryder Slade.

  Within seconds, the screen filled with hundreds of search results. Numerous articles detailed the events that had occurred the night of his father’s death. Ryder and Tori’s marriage had just ended, and he had drowned his sorrows at a bar. Tori picked him up and drove him home, where an argument ensued with his father, resulting in Ryder getting behind the wheel of a truck and running him over. Frank Slade had been pronounced dead at the scene. Ryder confessed to involuntary manslaughter and had been sentenced to ten years in prison. He had just become eligible for parole last month.

  Chelsea scanned article after article, the most recent from the morning of his release last week. Her hands shook as she logged on to the county website and entered his name. Two pages’ worth of charges from his late teens and early twenties filled the screen. Nothing serious. Mostly disorderly conduct, speeding and trespassing. But it was enough to show a pattern of bad behavior.

  Regardless, he had killed a man, spent time in prison and there was no way her daughter was going anywhere near Ryder Slade ever again.

  Copyright © 2019 by Amanda Renee

  ISBN-13: 9781488086038

  Home on the Ranch: The Montana Cowboy’s Triplets

  Copyright © 2019 by Allison B. Collins

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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