DeVore lost the love of his life ten years ago, left his seven-figure career with a huge financial firm, and became a recluse. He now indulges a hobby of photography which has become his new vocation. At one of the few social functions he attends, he meets an amazing young man. Can he find new life and new love? The game of hearts is always risky, but what if a part of your first love now lives in another body?<br><br>Tim was a preemie and always frail. Later, an organ transplant was the only thing that could save him. Now grown, he still struggles to break restrictive family ties and find a purpose. It’s a thrill to meet the charismatic DeVore, an idol whose powerful photographs move many. But is this attraction his own, or coming from the stranger’s heart now beating in his chest?

A Game of Hearts

After that, he slowed at each point where a forest road left the highway, questing down the dirt tracks to seek a hint of Tim’s passage. The third one felt right. He took it. The road took him past a derelict ranch, corrals still in useable shape, but the house and barn falling to ruin. He guessed the family had long since moved to town. If they still ran cattle, perhaps an old cowboy camped in a line cabin somewhere, or perhaps they just came out on weekends to take care of things. He saw a decades-old pickup, more rust now than faded blue paint, but no green Jeep sat in the ranch yard. He drove on.


Eventually the road ended at a campground looking little better than the ranch. A dilapidated outhouse stood to one side and a couple of picnic tables, scarred and splintered. A flash of green caught his eye. Yes, there sat the Cherokee, behind a bushy juniper tree. DeVore parked on the closer side of the same tree and got out. He circled slowly, looking for tracks.


Chapter 16