"Miss Carano said you didn't eat junk food."

"She did?" The fact that she'd mentioned him to the boy in any way other than as a court-appointed advocate sent a warm feeling through him. Warm, like her sunny smile.

That warmth, that genuine caring both drew and repelled him. He didn't understand it. But he couldn't deny how good it had felt to dump his burden on her desk and to believe she would do exactly what she promised. Maybe she'd have no better luck than he'd had in finding Drew and Ian. But for the first time in years, he felt renewed hope.

Hanging out with a social worker might not be so bad after all.

Little more than a week later, Collin considered changing his mind.

He stood in the last stall of his barn showing Mitchell how to measure horse feed. The smell of hay and horses circled around his head.

The kid was all right most of the time. The social worker was a different matter.

He did okay on the days Mia dropped Mitch off as planned, said hello and goodbye and drove away in her power suit and speedy little yellow Mustang. The days she climbed out of that Mustang wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt gave him trouble. Regardless that she was here on business to assess the CAP arrangement, dressed like that, she was a woman, not a social worker. It was hard to dislike one and like the other, so he tried to keep his distance.

Trouble was, Mia didn't understand the concept of personal space. She was in his, talking a mile a minute, smile warm, attitude sweet. The more he retreated, the more she advanced.

Over the clatter of horse pellets hitting metal, he could hear her talking in soft, soothing tones to Happy, the pup with the lousy luck and the cheerful outlook.

"How much feed does Smokey get?" Mitch's question pulled Collin back to the horse feed.

"None of the pellets. Just some of this alfalfa."

Mitch frowned, dubious. "He's awful skinny."

"Too much at first can kill him."

"How come somebody let him get like that? I can see his ribs."

The buckskin colt stood quivering in the stall, head down, so depressed Collin wondered if he'd survive.

"Some people don't care."

It was a cold, hard fact that both he and the boy knew all too well. "Yeah."

In the few days Mitch had been here, Collin had ferreted out a few unsavory facts about his home life. The stepdad wasn't exactly father-of-the-year material. And mom wouldn't win any prizes either, although the kid was loyal to her anyway. Collin didn't press him about his mother. He'd been the same once, until the woman who'd birthed him walked away and never looked back. He hoped that never happened to Mitchell.

Hand full of green, scented hay, the kid knelt in front of the little horse. "Come on, Smokey. It's okay."

The colt nuzzled the outstretched fingers, then nibbled a bit of grass.

Mitch had a way with all the creatures on the farm. Even Doc had commented on that. Like a magnet, he was drawn to the sickest ones, the most wounded, the near-hopeless. Street-kid wariness melted into incredible tenderness when he approached the animals. Not one of them shied away from the boy's tenacious determination to make them all well.

"I promised Happy I'd soak his foot later. Is that okay?" Mitchell was on a mission to save the crippled little collie. Every day, he went to Happy's stall first and last with some extra time in between.

"What did Doc say?"

"She said extra soaks can't hurt nothing."

She was right about that. Happy's foot had reached the point when hope was all but gone. Soaking couldn't make the wound any worse, and any action at all made them feel as if they were doing something. "All right then."

Collin moved down the corridor, taking care of the menial tasks so necessary for the survival of these wounded creatures who depended on him. Cleaning pens, scooping waste, lining stalls and boxes with fresh straw.

Mia was inside the cat pen.

He frowned at her. "I thought you left." He hadn't really, but he didn't know what else to say.

"You wish." With a laugh, she lifted one of Panda's kittens from the box and draped the fur ball over her shoulder. "What's wrong? Rough day?"

Yeah, he'd had a lousy day, but how did she know? He didn't like having some woman, a social worker at that, inside his head.

"I'm all right." He ducked into Happy's stall to escape her. She followed, but didn't press him about his gray mood.

"Mitch seems to be doing a good job for you, don't you agree?"

"Yeah." The dog wobbled up from his straw bed, tail wagging. The smell of antiseptic and dying flesh was hard to ignore.

"Has he opened up at all about why he runs away so much?"

"A little."

"But you're not going to tell me."

"Confidential."

She rolled her big eyes at him. She had interesting eyes. Huge and almond-shaped, soft and sparkly. He didn't know how a person made her eyes sparkly, but she did.

Mia knelt to stroke the pup while still holding the kitten against her shoulder. Happy, tail thumping a mile a minute, didn't seem to mind having a cat invade his territory. Dumb dog didn't seem to mind much of anything.

"What's going to happen to him?"

"Happy? Or Mitch?"

She gave him another of her wide-eyed looks. He wanted to laugh. "The dog."

"If things don't improve this week, Doc's going to amputate the other foot on Monday."

"Oh, Collin." Her face was stricken. She glanced toward the stall door. "Does Mitch know?"

"No."

"No wonder you're in a bad mood tonight. I thought maybe you'd had to shoot somebody today."

"That would have made me feel better."

She looked up. "Not funny."

"Sorry. Bad cop joke." Using force was the last thing he ever wanted.

"How do you cops do that, anyway? Shoot somebody, I mean."

"We pretend they're lawyers." He shook kibble into Happy's bowl. "Or social workers."

"Ha-ha. I'm laughing." But she did giggle. "When are you going to tell him?"

He crumpled an empty feed sack into an oversize ball. "I don't know."

"Want me to do it?"

"My responsibility." He tossed the sack into a trash bin and knelt beside the pup. "I wish I knew who did this to him."

The little dog licked his outstretched hand, liquid brown eyes delighted by the attention. Anger and helplessness pushed inside Collin's chest. He hated feeling helpless.

"I ran a computer search of the system today on you and your brothers."

His pulse quickened though he told himself to expect nothing. "And came up empty?"

"Mostly."

"Figures." Refusing to be disappointed, he stood and took the kitten from her. The soft, warm body wiggled in protest. As many years as he'd searched he couldn't expect miracles from Mia in a week.

"There's some information about you, but the facts on Drew and Ian seem to be the same that you already have. A couple of foster placements. Some medical records."

He wanted to ask what she'd found on him, but didn't bother. She'd probably tell him anyway. Mia already knew too much about him and she was likely to learn more. Opening his sordid background to anyone always made him feel vulnerable, and nothing scared him like vulnerability.

He led the way out of Happy's stall to take the kitten back to Panda. A glance toward the horses told him Mitch was busy mucking out stalls. A perverse part of him figured that particular job was adequate punishment for shoplifting.

"Collin."

He lowered the tiny tabby to her mother. Panda's burns were healing, but she didn't let anyone except Mitch touch her. Even Doc had had to sedate the cat before treating the wounds, an unusual turn of events.

"Collin," she said again, this time from beneath his elbow.

With a sigh, he turned. "What?"

She wrinkled her nose at him, fully aware her chatter bothered him. She looked cute, and he didn't like it. Social workers weren't supposed to be cute.

"I brought the file of information with me. Do you want to see it?"

"Might as well."

Nothing like cold, hard welfare facts to make a man stop thinking about a pretty woman.

Inside Collin's house for the first time, Mia thought the interior of the unfinished, basically unfurnished house was exactly what she expected of him. Neat and tidy to a fault, one long room served as kitchen, living room, and dining room. The furniture consisted of an easy chair, a TV and a small dining-room set. There were no pictures on the walls, no curtains on the shaded windows, no plants or other decorating touches. Collin lived a neatly Spartan lifestyle.

To Mia, who lived in a veritable jungle of plants, terra-cotta pots and pieces of Tuscan decor jammed into a tiny apartment, the house was sadly bare but filled with potential. A pot here. A plant there.

"I live simply," he said when he caught her looking.

"The place has great potential."

"It's not even finished."

"That's why it has great potential."

He shook his head and pulled out two chairs. "Sit. I'll move the laptop."

She eyed the animated screen saver. "Did Mitchell do that?"

"Yeah. He loves the thing."

Mia knew the boy didn't have a computer at home. "His teacher says he's a regular whiz kid."

"He knows keystroke shortcuts I didn't know existed and can navigate sites I can't get into. I'm afraid to ask if he's ever tried hacking."

"The answer is probably yes."

"I know." With a self-deprecating laugh that surprised her, Collin admitted, "He even offered to teach me keyboarding."

"You should let him. Teaching you would be good for his self-esteem."

"It wouldn't be too good for mine." He wiggled his two index fingers. "Old habits die hard."

A large brown envelope lay on the table beside the computer. She reached for it. "Is that more information about your brothers?"

"No. Just another problem I'm working on."

"Anything I can help with?"

"Not unless you're a lawyer. My neighbor," he said, his lips twisted, "is suing me."

"What for?" She couldn't imagine Collin Grace ever being intrusive enough for any neighbor even to know him, much less be at cross-purposes.

"He claims one of my animals has attacked his prize sheep on more than one occasion."

"They couldn't." All the animals here were both too sick and too well-confined to bother anything.

"Cecil Slokum has found something to complain about ever since I bought this place."

"Why?"

"Don't know. This time though," he waved the envelope in the air, "I ran a background check on him."

"Oooh, suspicious. Remind me never to tick you off."