LITMIR.BIZ

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back just a little, he lightly brushed his lips over hers.

      “Soon,” he promised. “Just be patient a bit longer.”

      “What choice do I have?” Savannah murmured, feeling dejected. She saw another endless, frustrating, lonely day stretch out in front of her. A day without Cruz. She dearly loved her son, but she needed a break from him. A break from him and time with her husband. But that wasn’t going to happen.

      Her eyes met Cruz’s, willing him to stay. “I love you.”

      “And I love you,” he told her. “This is all for you, you know that. For you and Luke.” Grabbing his hat, he started to leave the kitchen.

      “No,” she said sadly to his back. “It’s all for you. Because I could live in a mud hut, as long as you were right there beside me.”

      Wearily, Cruz spun on his heel to look at her. She was spouting romantic nonsense and he was in no mood for it. “No,” he said evenly, “you couldn’t. Because you can’t wear mud, you can’t eat mud, you can’t hand a bucket of mud to the doctor. It takes money, Savannah. Everything takes money and I’m earning it the only way I know how.” And he was getting damn tired of having to justify himself to her on top of everything else he had to do. “Go call one of my sisters. Take that bubble bath,” he instructed. “You’ll feel better.”

      She said nothing as the sound of his boots receding on the wooden floor echoed through the silent house. The next moment, she heard the front door closing.

      “No, I won’t,” she countered. “The only thing that will make me feel better is knowing that you’re still in love with me.”

      And she had grave doubts about that. Doubts that her giving in to her heart and marrying Cruz had been the right thing to do, after all.

      Maybe she had made a mistake.

      She’d held out in the beginning because she hadn’t wanted what her parents had had. Theirs was a marriage forged by guilt, held together by desperation, and eventually disintegrated by mutual loathing. All because they’d set out to “do the right thing” in the beginning. Her mother had been pregnant with her when she and her father had gotten married, and not a day went by in her childhood that they allowed her to forget it. To forget that she was the reason for their misery.

      She had grown up feeling responsible for generating the unhappiness of not just one person, but two. She’d also grown up vowing that when it was her turn, she was not going to marry for any other reason than love.

      Everlasting love.

      And when she’d looked into Cruz’s ruggedly handsome face, that was exactly what she’d felt. She’d known that she was always going to love him all the days of her life, no matter what.

      But as far as being assured that he would feel the same…well, that had taken some convincing on his part. But he’d worn her down, making her believe that he truly wanted her, not because it was the honorable thing to do, but because he loved her.

      Maybe he was a better actor than she’d given him credit for.

      Or maybe she’d just talked herself into it. After all, if Cruz did love her, would he be using the ranch as an excuse to be away from her except for a few hours a day? Would he be so caught up in his horses that he didn’t have any time to spare for her or the child he’d given his name to?

      Cruz had been extremely fussy when it came to hiring men to work on his ranch. Right now they had three very capable hands, two who lived on the property in a mobile trailer Cruz’s parents had given them. Men he’d told her he relied on.

      So why wasn’t he delegating any responsibility to them? Why did he have to be personally involved in every single tiny aspect of running the ranch? He was so completely hands-on. From the feeding and handling of the horses right down to the maintenance of the fences that kept his herd of twenty-five within the five-hundred-acre ranch, he was there for everything.

      First one up, last one down.

      It was as if he had something to prove. Over and over again, every day. As if he was the last man hired instead of the one who handed out the paychecks.

      Despite the summer heat, which was still stifling in the early-morning hours, Savannah poured hot water over the tea bag she’d plunked into her cup. Maybe tea would help soothe her stomach, although she didn’t hold out much hope.

      She took the cup back to the table, hoping to pull herself together before Luke bounced out of bed.

      Clutching the cup with both hands, she brought it to her lips and blew before taking the smallest sip and letting the liquid wind down into her stomach.

      Granted, she’d known when she married Cruz that he would never be a gentleman rancher. That he wouldn’t be just marginally involved in the day-to-day activities but would plunge into them, full steam ahead. That was what she loved about him—that he could get involved with something wholeheartedly.

      She just never thought that it would ultimately be to the exclusion of her and their child.

      Cruz had been a horse whisperer when she’d first met him, a man who had an almost uncanny affinity for the animals he trained. He could take a horse with a broken spirit, a horse that seemed infused with the very devil himself, and somehow find a way to reach the animal. To form a bond and communicate with it until that animal had completely transformed into a horse that could be trained, managed. A horse that any owner would be proud to have.

      First Cruz would breach the chasm, then became one with the horse, and the horse would become one with him. It was a thing of beauty to watch.

      But now it seemed that he had thrown her over for the horses.

      The horses and everything that went with them. The care, the cleaning, the feeding and the mucking out of the stalls, every aspect of the animals’ lives came before sharing time with his family.

      And she hadn’t a clue how to change that.

      Savannah felt tears stinging her eyes. How had she lost him?

      Why didn’t he love her as he used to?

      She thought of the tiny moment they’d shared just before he’d left. The old Cruz was still in there somewhere. She just needed to find a way to bring him out again.

      To have him want her again.

      Savannah glanced at her reflection in the darkened window just above the sink as the first rays of dawn began to materialize along the horizon. She turned sideways, critically studying herself. Her body wasn’t misshapen yet.

      Maybe she could seduce him.

      A hopeful smile curved her lips. The idea had merit.

       Three

       T he second Savannah finished making the last of the new entries into the computer program she used to track La Esperanza’s expenses, she saved the data and turned off her computer.

      Closing the laptop, she turned toward her son, who was still very enamored with the action figures Vanessa had given him yesterday. Both monster and monster eradicator were making awful noises, courtesy of Luke. Any other time it might have been enough to get a bad headache rolling in Savannah’s skull.

      But not today. She had a plan to get rolling instead. And a marriage to get back on track.

      Glancing at Luke, she saw that he was perched on top of the sofa, a figure in each hand. Obviously the fantasy he was acting out had taken the two characters and their orchestrator up to the top of some mountain.

      “You know the rules, Luke,” she called out to him. “No flying off the sofa.”

      Clutching his figures to him, he pushed out his bottom lip. “Aw, Mama.”

      She gave him her best no-nonsense look. “No ‘aw, Mama.’ Down, mister.”

      Luke scooted his bottom down along the upholstery,

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