Everything about her seemed to touch him. He couldn’t remember being moved by any other woman in the same way. To look at Zoe was to see a lover, a woman who spilled over with her own unique brand of feminine warmth and sensuality, an intriguing blend of fragility and strength.

They’d battled until nearly three this morning…a gentle battle. Children were a painful subject for Zoe-she was so sure she wanted nothing to do with them. One look at her with the kids and Rafe couldn’t fathom how she could imagine herself as uncaring. From bits and pieces, he’d guessed that a man she loved had broken off with her when he’d discovered she was barren.

Maybe it was at that exact point that he’d known he wanted her with him. Why really made no sense. He didn’t love her, didn’t know her well enough to love her, but there was something there. Something haunting in her green eyes when she talked about children, something fragile that made him want to protect her, something in her smile that made him want to bask in more of those smiles. He couldn’t let that something go.

She hadn’t backed down until he’d agreed they’d go to Montana first. He knew why. She was sure he’d become attached to the boys when he saw them on his own turf. He was supposed to see that the kids belonged with him-she’d been perfectly honest about it.

Rafe hadn’t been quite so honest with her, and figured he’d better not be. Not that he needed his life turned upside down by the advent of two children, but he’d have taken them by himself if he’d had to. Deserting the kids was no more of a possibility for him than it was for Zoe. To let her know that, though, would mean watching the fragile nightingale fly away. He’d had to make it very clear he wouldn’t take them at all unless she came along, too, and that even then, he would do so unwillingly.

Maybe it was crazy to act on that first overpowering surge of attraction and compassion and simple fascination for a woman. He’d never been impulsive. He’d never acted purely on instinct. Rashness wasn’t even part of his character.