The boy was silent for a minute. Then he blew out a gust of air as if he'd been holding his breath, afraid Collin would send him away. "Not my mom."

The stepdad then. Collin had run a check on Teddy Shipley. He had a rap sheet longer than the road from here to California, where he'd spent a year in the pen for assault with a deadly weapon and manufacturing an illegal substance. A real honey of a guy.

Collin hunkered down beside the boy, rested one hand lightly on the skinny back. "You can tell me anything."

Mitchell developed a sudden fascination with the bristles of Happy's brush. He flicked them back and forth against his palm. "I can't."

And then he dropped the brush and buried his face in Happy's thick fur. Happy, true to his name, moaned in ecstatic joy and licked at the air.

The kid was either scared or he knew something that would incriminate someone he cared about. And the cop in Collin suspected who.

He sighed wearily. Life could be so stinking ugly.

"If he hits you again, I'm all over him."

Mitch's head jerked up. His one good eye widened. "I never told you that. Don't be saying I did."

Compassion, mixed with frustration, pushed at the back of Collin's throat. He clamped down on his back teeth, hating the feelings.

"Did you go to school like this?"

Mitch shook his head. "No."

So that's why he'd shown up here this evening. Things were out of hand at home.

"Does he hit your mom, too?"

Tears welled in the boy's eyes. "She'd be real mad if she knew I told."

"Why?"

"She just would."

What Mitch wasn't saying spoke volumes. Collin had seen this scenario before. He'd also lived it.

Violence. Codependence. Drugs. A mother who preferred the drugs and a violent man to the safety and well-being of herself and her child. He wouldn't be a bit surprised if Teddy was cooking meth again, a suspicion that deserved checking into.

The sound of a car engine had Mitchell scrubbing frantically at his face. Collin turned toward the interruption. He'd know that Mustang purr anywhere. Mia. Just who he did not want to see. A social worker who'd stick her nose into something she couldn't fix. He was a cop. He could handle the situation far better than she could.

Mitch leaped up, recognizing the car as well. His one good eye widened in panic. "Don't say anything, huh, Collin?"

Like she wouldn't notice an eye swollen shut.

"Go brush down the colt and give him a block of hay," he said, giving the kid an out. If Mia didn't see him, she wouldn't ask questions, and no one would have to lie.

Mitch shot out of the pen, disappearing into the far stall.

Collin picked up an empty feed sack and crushed it into a ball.

His world had been orderly and uneventful until Mia had come barging into it, hounding him, talking until he'd said yes to shut her up. And then her family had gotten in on the deal. First the birthday party. Then Adam's help with the lawsuit. And now Leo, Mia's father, found daily reasons why Collin had to stop by the bakery. Try as he might, Collin couldn't seem to say no.

Man. What had he gotten himself into?

The colt whickered. One of the dogs started barking. And the whole menagerie began moving restlessly.

Collin didn't rush out to greet his visitor. He needed some time to think. Still baffled by Mia's stubbornness over something as simple as looking into a file, he wasn't sure what to say to her.

They didn't share the same sense of justice. He believed in obeying the law, but there was a difference in the spirit of the law and the letter of the law. To him, opening his own brothers' adoption files, if they existed, would fall under the spirit of the law. It was the right and just thing to do.

But he had to be fair to Mia, too. She'd gone above and beyond the call of duty in searching those moldy old files in the first place. And even if she was a pain in the backside sometimes, having her around lightened him somehow, as if the goodness in her could rub off.

After a minute's struggle, Collin decided to wait her out. Mia knew where he was if she had something to say. He'd known from the start he didn't want the grief of some woman trying to get inside his head. He had enough trouble inside there himself.

He went to work scrubbing down a newly emptied pen. The last stray, hit by a car, hadn't made it. He'd been hungry too long to have the strength to fight.

Fifteen minutes later, when Mia hadn't come storming inside the barn, smiling and rattling off at the mouth, Collin began to wonder if he'd heard her car at all. He dumped the last of the bleach water over the metal security cage and went to find out.

Sure enough, Mia's yellow Mustang sat in his driveway but she was nowhere to be seen.

Mitch came to stand beside him, one of Panda's adolescent kittens against his chest. "Where is she?"

"Beats me."

At that very moment, she flounced around the side of the house, her sweater flapping open in the stiff wind. She wasn't wearing her usual smile. Almond eyes shooting sparks, she marched right up to Collin.

"I don't stop being a friend because of a disagreement."

That didn't surprise him. The sudden lift in his mood did. Renewed energy shot through his tired muscles. He hid a smile. Mia was pretty cute when she got all wound up.

She slapped a wooden spoon against his chest.

"I brought food. Home-cooked." She tilted her head in a smug look. "And you are going to love it."

He fought the temptation to laugh. Normally, when a woman pushed too hard, she was history, but with Mia he couldn't stay upset. That fact troubled him, but there it was.

Unmindful of the sparks flying between the adults, Mitch stepped between them. "Food. Cool."

Mia started to say something then stopped. Her mouth dropped open. She stared at Mitchell's bruised face, expression horrified. "What happened to you?"

Mitchell shot Collin a silent plea and then hung his head, averting his battered face.

"I got in a fight."

"Oh, Mitch." And then her fingers gently grazed the boy's cheekbone in a motherly gesture. The tension in Mitch's shoulders visibly relaxed, but his eyes never met Mia's.

Collin let the lie pass for now. Whether Mitch liked the idea or not, a cop was mandated by law to share his suspicions with the proper authorities, and that was Mia. If there was any possibility that a child was in danger, welfare had a right to know. The policeman in him accepted that regardless of his personal aversion.

"I'm starved," he said, knowing his statement would be an effective diversion. Mia's respondent smile washed through him warm and sweet, like a spring wind through a field of flowers. "Cleaning pens can wait until after dinner."

"Not mad at me anymore?" she asked.

Quirking one brow, he started toward the house and left her to figure that out for herself. He wasn't sure he knew the answer anyway.

The early sunsets of November were upon them and the wind blew from the north promising a change in weather. Leaves loosened their tree-grip and tumbled like tiny, colorful gymnasts across the neatly fenced lots housing the grazers. The deer with the bad hip had healed and now roamed restlessly up and down the fence line longing to run free. Collin and Doc had decided to wait until after hunting season ended to give the young buck a fighting chance.

When they reached the house, Collin opened the door and let Mia and Mitchell enter first. The smell of Italian seasoning rushed out and swirled around his nose.

"Smells great. What is it?" Not that he cared-a home-cooked Italian dinner was too good to pass up. Especially one cooked by Mia.

"Lasagna. Wash your hands. Both of you." She shooed them toward the sink. "Food's still hot."

Along with Mitchell, he meekly did as he was told, scrubbing at the kitchen sink. If anyone else came into his house issuing orders and rummaging in his cabinets, he would be furious. Weird that he wasn't bothered much at all.

While Mia rattled forks and thumped plates onto his tiny table, he murmured to Mitch, "A lie will always come back to bite you. Better tell her."

Mitchell darted a quick glance at Mia and gave his head a slight shake, his too-long hair flopping forward to hide his expression. Collin let the subject drop. For now.

Moments later, they dug into the meal. Collin could barely contain a moan of pleasure.

Lifting a forkful of steaming noodles and melted mozzarella, he said, "If this is your idea of a peace offering, I'll get mad at you more often."

Mia sliced a loaf of bread and pushed the platter toward him. Steam curled upward, bringing the scent of garlic and yeast.

"There are still things I can do to help, Collin. Unlike foster-care files, many of the adoption files have been computerized. I started searching the open ones today."

He took a chunk of the bread and slathered on a pat of real butter. "Are the sealed files on computer, too?"

There was a beat of silence, and then, "It doesn't matter."

She wasn't budging from her hard-nosed stand.

"After all the years I've searched and come up empty, I think the adoption files are the answer. They have to be."

Mitchell was already digging in for seconds. "Why are you trying to get into adoption files?"

Collin started. He never spoke openly about his brothers or his past. He'd never before said a word about them in front of Mitchell. Was this what hanging around with a chatterbox did for a guy? He started to lie to the boy, and then remembered his words only moments before. A lie would always come back to haunt you.

"I'm looking for my brothers," he said honestly. "We were separated in foster care as kids."

Saying the words aloud didn't seem so hard this time.

"No kidding?" Mitch backhanded a string of cheese from his mouth. "You were a foster kid?"

"Yeah. I was." He held his breath. Would the knowledge lessen him in Mitchell's eyes?

Mitch's one unblemished eye, brown and serious, studied him in awe. "But you became a cop. How'd you do that?"

And just that simply, Collin experienced a frisson of pride instead of shame. Mia had been right all along. Mitch needed to know that the two of them shared some commonalities.

"A lousy childhood doesn't have to hold you back."

By now, the boy's mouth was jammed full again, so he just nodded and chewed. He chased the food with a gulp of iced tea and then said, "So where are your brothers? Can Miss Carano find them? Can't the police find them? I'll help you look for them. How many do you have?"

His words tumbled out, eager and naive.

Collin filled him in on the bare facts. "And Miss Carano's helping me search, too. Even though I've been a pain about it."

He gave her his version of an apologetic look. He wasn't sorry for asking her to bend the rules a little, but he was glad to be back on comfortable footing with her. The last couple of days had been lousy without her.

"I've started a hand search of the old records in the storage room of the municipal building," Mia told him. "That's where I found that address the other day."

The police records were warehoused the same way, and he knew from experience that hand searches were tedious and time-consuming. And often fruitless.

"I appreciate all you're doing, Mia. Honestly. But you can't blame me for wanting to investigate every available option."

"I don't blame you." She pushed her plate aside and said, "Anyone for dessert?"

"Dessert?" Both males moaned at the same time.

"You should have warned us." Collin put a hand over his full belly. He looked around the tiny kitchen, spotted a covered container on the bar. "What is it?"

Mia laughed. "My own made-from-scratch cherry chocolate bundt cake. But we can save dessert for later."

"You made it yourself?"

"Yep. The bread and lasagna, too."

The sweet Italian bread must have come from her parents' bakery. "No way."

"Way. I didn't grow up a baker's daughter for nothing. All of us kids cut our teeth on the old butcher-block table in the back of the bakery where Mom and Dad hand-mixed the dough for all kinds of cakes and breads and cookies."

She got up and started clearing the table. Collin grabbed the glasses.

"Let me help with this."

"I can get the dishes. Didn't you say you still have work in the barn?"

"Work can wait."

Mitchell, who looked as if he'd rather be anywhere but in a kitchen with unwashed dishes, piped up. "I'll do the rest of the chores outside. I don't mind."

With a knowing chuckle, Collin gave him instructions and let him go.

"Did you see the look on his face?"

"And to think he prefers mucking out stalls to our esteemed company." Mia feigned hurt.