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  She was trying to figure it all out. “We’re still married.”

  He smiled. “Convenient, isn’t it?” he asked. “Instant family, just add house.”

  She laughed. Cried. She hugged him close. “Oh, my goodness!”

  “I’ve been wracking my brain for a way to tell you,” he confessed. “Especially when it looked like Ramirez was winning.”

  “I’m very fond of Rodrigo, but I could never feel that way about him,” she said softly. “He’s just my partner.”

  “Former partner,” he said firmly.

  She looked worried. “I know. But I…”

  “Former partner,” he repeated. “He can still come and see Bernadette from time to time,” he conceded. “She genuinely cares about him. And vice versa.”

  “That’s nice of you,” she said.

  He grinned at her. “Yes, it is, isn’t it?”

  She curled close to him. “I think we’re going to be very happy here.”

  “So do I, baby,” he replied, cuddling her. “So do I.”

  THE HUNTERS came down to see the new property, with Nikki.

  “I’m damned sorry about Bernadette,” Phillip told Colby solemnly. “It’s not like me to be off my guard like that.”

  “Dominguez would have found a way, no matter who had her,” Colby said sincerely. “Who’d expect a child to be snatched in public view, in a restaurant?”

  “I suppose so. I feel bad, just the same. By the way,” he added, “guess where the drugs were hidden in the warehouse?”

  “You found them?” Colby exclaimed.

  “Found where they’d been,” Hunter corrected, smiling. “Remember the dogs sniffing around the wall? Well, during the tenure of the former guard, the one who was arrested, the smugglers actually built a false wall with plywood and repainted it. Damned good job. Turns out one of those men Vance was protecting was a carpenter.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Colby chuckled. “What about Vance?” he added.

  “Arrested and charged with conspiracy,” Hunter replied. “That should make Sarina’s day.”

  “Indeed it will.”

  “Domiguez is in the hospital with around-the-clock guards. When she’s able, she and her confederates will all be escorted out of Jacobsville by U.S. Marshals. That should be pretty soon.”

  “I won’t mind seeing her go,” Colby said curtly. “She was willing to kill Bernadette. One of her henchmen had my baby with a gun to her head. If Grier hadn’t been around,” he added, “I don’t know what we’d have done. I never trained as a sniper.”

  “Lucky for you that Grier was here,” Hunter said heavily.

  “You aren’t kidding,” Colby said quietly. “Imagine, a man with a background like that being able to settle in a small town like Jacobsville.”

  “He’s learned to live with his past,” Hunter replied. “Something we’ve all had to do.”

  “Some of us are still trying,” Sarina pointed out as she joined them, smiling. “Or didn’t you hear yet about the smuggler who ran to the sheriff for protection after Colby questioned him?” she added with a pointed glance at Colby.

  “I had to know where they were holding Bernadette,” Colby defended himself. He put a hand over his heart. “But I’m reforming as we speak,” he promised with a grin.

  They all laughed. Bernadette, who’d been playing with Nikki, had a sudden change of expression. She went to Colby and took him by the hand.

  “I have to talk to you, Daddy,” she said solemnly.

  “Okay,” he agreed with a smile. “What is it?”

  She pulled him to the end of the porch at Cy’s house and pushed him gently into the swing. She jumped up beside him. “You mustn’t interrupt me,” she said, “because I learned it all by heart and I have to say it straight through. Okay?”

  “Okay,” he agreed curiously.

  “Here goes.” She launched into a short speech in Apache.

  Colby’s face went white. He knew the words. His father had written them to him, when he was much younger. He’d thrown the letter away, half read. But now he listened, intently, while his daughter spoke the healing words that burned the mist away from the past and made a path for Colby back to the father he’d known as a boy.

  Bernadette hesitated only once, just at the end. “You are my son,” she told him, “and I will always love you, no matter what you do, no matter what you are, no matter where you go. As my eyes close forever, it is you that I see behind my eyelids, as I walk into the darkness where your mother awaits me. As a father forgives his child, so the great spirit forgives all his children, even me. I will always watch over you, and your child, and her children. And I will always love you.”

  She stopped speaking, because tears were rolling down Colby’s dark cheeks.

  She reached up and brushed the tears away with her small fingers. “Granddaddy said that I would know when to tell you. It was the right time, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, my baby,” he whispered, pressing his lips to her forehead. “It was the right time.”

  “I love you, Daddy.”

  He closed his eyes as he held her close, remembering all the loneliness of his life, all the pain and grief and misery that he’d experienced, that he’d caused. It was a long path from there to here, with his child against his heart and a future with her and her mother that looked diamond bright.

  “Are you sad, Daddy?” she asked.

  He held her closer, glancing past her at Sarina, who smiled at him with misty eyes. “No. I’m so happy that it’s overflowing,” he whispered. He kissed her cheek. “I love you, too, Bernadette. With all my heart.”

  “And Mommy, too?”

  “And Mommy, too,” he agreed.

  She grinned, looking so much like him that it was uncanny.

  He tugged at her hair. “I could eat a very large pizza right now,” he said.

  “So could I!” she exclaimed, jumping down.

  He got up from the swing, feeling twenty pounds lighter and a foot taller. He hoped that his father could see the small family circle, arm in arm, walking together, wreathed in love. He was almost certain that he could. He held Bernadette’s little hand tight in his own, and drew Sarina closer at his side. A man who had love, he decided, needed nothing more. Nothing more at all.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-0092-4

  OUTSIDER

  Copyright © 2006 by Diana Palmer

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario M3B 3K9, Canada.

  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.

  ® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

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