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“If you don’t have any plans for Thanksgiving next week, you’re welcome to join me and my father for the holiday.”
    She nodded, “Thanks, I’ll let you know what my plans are.”
    Noah walked from the room, grabbed his cowboy hat, and left the house. After five minutes of silence, Amanda called for Webster. “Come here boy,” she crooned as her clumsy beagle trotted into the kitchen. She patted the dog’s head and hunched over to hug him close to her. “If only you could talk. You could tell me what you think about Mr. Noah West!”
    She released the dog and watched him bounce from the room. Glancing at her watch, she moaned. It was ten o’clock and she hadn’t even started on the graphics for the web page she was working on. She had told her client that the web page would be finished before Thanksgiving. “Guess I’ll be working around the clock on this one,” she murmured to herself.
    As she opened her email, she noticed a message from her mother. She wasn’t going to make it to Texas for Thanksgiving. Amanda felt a wave of disappointment wash over her. Before she left Chicago, she had received an email from her mother that confirmed travel plans for a Thanksgiving visit. Donna had then telephoned Amanda and gushed about how excited she was about seeing her. Now she changed her mind. Her email was short and stated that her husband, Paul, wanted to wisk her away to Italy for the Thanksgiving holiday. He had some friends who lived there and they wanted to meet his new wife.
    Amanda swallowed a lump in her throat, fighting an urge to cry. She had been so looking forward to seeing her mother. It had been such a long time. But, just as always, she would pick herself up and brush her discontent aside.
    As she began working again, her mind wandered back to earlier when Noah had invited her to Thanksgiving dinner. What if he was just inviting her to dinner so he could bring up selling the ranch to his father once more? She couldn’t bear listening to that proposition again!
    Closing her eyes, she tried to clear her mind of all thoughts except her current work. But very quickly, Noah’s intense hazel eyes slipped into her head. His strong hands brushed back the thick dark hair that always fell across his forehead. Suddenly, he was on a stallion, smiling seductively as he pulled Amanda up from the ground with his powerful arms and settled her behind him on the large horse. Amanda wrapped her arms around his slender waist and held on tight as he raced the stallion across the wide open spaces of the ranch…
    “ Oh no!” Amanda bolted up from the keyboard, where her head had been resting. She blinked her eyes repeatedly, trying to adjust her sight to the sunlight streaming through the kitchen window. Glancing at her watch, she scowled. Seven o’clock in the morning! She must have drifted off to sleep after that fantasy about Noah last night! Oh, why was she letting him get under her skin?
    Feeling confused about him was definitely the least of her problems at this point … now she was dreaming of him!
    "I'm just tired. That's what it is. Tired from the move… tired from working . That explains my strange emotions. Noah has nothing to do with it," she whispered to herself softly.
    Rising from the chair, she stretched her stiff muscles and shuffled her feet to the coffeemaker, totally convinced that fatigue was the problem!
    ********
    Nibbling on a piece of toast smothered in grape jam, Amanda decided she was done. She had finished her client’s web page! Joyfully, she looked around the house. She also had almost every box unpacked. And it was two days before Thanksgiving. Quickly, she typed a lengthy email to her client to inform him that the web page was ready for his review.
    With a satisfied grin, she leaned back in her chair behind the kitchen table, a place that had become almost stationary for her the last couple of days. Of course, she did leave the house to buy groceries, but other than that, work and