LITMIR.BIZ

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truth, the better off she would be.

Two

      Blake glanced over at his backpack, the thermal food carrier and the jug of iced tea on the truck seat beside him as he drove away from the main ranch house. His house.

      He had never lied to Karly, not eight months ago and not today.

      But he hadn’t been completely honest with her, either.

      When they met in Las Vegas, he’d told her that besides competing in rodeo, he was the boss at the Wolf Creek Ranch in Wyoming. She had assumed that meant he was the foreman and he hadn’t bothered to set her straight. For one thing, they’d been so hot for each other, they hadn’t talked at length about their jobs or much of anything else. And for another, he didn’t go around flaunting the fact that he owned the Wolf Creek or that he was a multimillionaire.

      He had firsthand knowledge of how the lure of money could influence people and he intended to avoid that kind of shallowness at all costs. He didn’t want the money to affect his relationships, and he’d been especially careful about what he’d shared with the woman he’d married so quickly. In the past, both he and his father had seen the ugly side of women hell-bent on getting their hands on a hefty bankroll and once had been enough to leave Blake more than a little cautious.

      But he was fairly certain Karly had no knowledge about the size of his bank account. She had fallen for him—without the influence of his money. He had figured that when she joined him at the ranch it would be a nice surprise to let her know that they would never have financial worries like a lot of other couples starting out. Unfortunately, he hadn’t had the chance to tell her the truth because she’d decided that living in a big city without him was preferable to living on the ranch with him. She’d made that decision without the influence of his money, too.

      In hindsight, he wished he’d told her right after they got married in Vegas. He didn’t want her thinking that he had been trying to hide his assets because of their pending divorce. That wasn’t the case at all. And he had every intention of telling her the truth, as well as providing her with a nice settlement for the very brief time they’d been married. He just needed to figure out the right time and way to go about doing that.

      He could have told her about his wealth when she called from Seattle to tell him she thought they’d made a mistake and that ending the marriage would be for the best. But he’d decided against that because she might have assumed it was a desperate attempt on his part to get her to reconsider their divorce, to give them a chance. Him begging for a second chance was something that would never happen. Even if his pride had allowed it, it probably wouldn’t have made a difference. She’d had her mind made up and nothing he could have said would have changed it.

      So he’d kept his secret and signed the papers. But he could have told her the truth today, too, when she’d mistakenly assumed the foreman’s cottage was his house and that the main house and ranch belonged to someone else. But he’d held back without really knowing why.

      All he knew was that his ego had taken enough of a hit eight months ago, when he’d learned that while she might have been the woman of his dreams, he obviously hadn’t been the man of hers. And if he was perfectly honest with himself, there had probably been a little fear holding him back, as well. He hadn’t wanted to tell her he was rich and end up finding out that he’d been wrong about her—that Karly could be swayed by the temptation of his money.

      As he steered his truck up the lane leading to the foreman’s cottage, he reached up to rub the tension building at the back of his neck. He wasn’t sure how something that had originally felt so right had gone so wrong. When he’d married Karly after only knowing her a week, the decision had seemed as natural as taking his next breath. Their whirlwind wedding carried on the Hartwell family tradition. Blake’s Grandma and Grandpa Hartwell had been married three days after meeting and his father and mother tied the knot two weeks after their first date. Both couples had successful marriages until death separated them and Blake had been sure it would be that way with himself and Karly. It was obvious now that he had been wrong.

      Parking his truck beside the little red sports car, Blake took a deep breath and reached for his backpack, the thermal carrier full of food and the gallon thermos of iced tea he’d had his cook pack for their supper. There was no sense in trying to figure out how he could have misjudged Karly’s commitment to their relationship. He had and there wasn’t anything he could do about it now. Besides, he’d never been one to dwell on his mistakes.

      As he walked toward the cottage, she opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. His breath caught and his heart thumped against his ribs. He felt the same pull that had drawn him to her the first time he’d laid eyes on her in Vegas. He forced himself to ignore the feeling. She might be the most exciting woman he’d ever known, but the sting of her rejection and her disdain for his lifestyle told him in no uncertain terms just how unimportant he was to her. She’d walked away from him once. He wouldn’t give her another chance to do it again.

      Distracted by his turbulent thoughts, it took him a moment to notice the frown on her pretty face. “Is something wrong?” he asked as he climbed the steps.

      “Where do you keep your food?” she answered his question with one of her own as they entered the house. “I was going to make something for dinner, but the refrigerator and pantry are both empty. If you live here why isn’t there anything in the house to eat?”

      “I usually eat down at the bunkhouse with the single men or over at the main house,” he said truthfully as he set the cooler and jug of iced tea on the kitchen island, then turned to hang his hat on a peg by the door. He did eat with his men at the bunkhouse occasionally, just not as often as he ate what his cook made for him in the main house.

      She looked doubtful. “Even in the winter when you’re snowed in?”

      He couldn’t help but laugh at her erroneous assumption. “Sweetheart, there’s no such thing as getting snowed in around here. A ranch is a twenty-four-hours, seven-days-a-week operation. It never shuts down because the livestock are depending on us to take care of them. If it rains we get wet. If it snows we wade through it no matter how deep it gets or how cold it is.”

      “I hadn’t thought of that.” Looking a little sheepish, she shook her head. “I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know anything about ranching.”

      “Don’t worry about it.” He motioned toward the thermal carrier. “And don’t worry about cooking. I had the cook over at the main house pack up what he made for supper. Why don’t you set the table while I go wash up?”

      He didn’t mention that he’d had to endure an interrogation and a stern lecture before old Silas finished loading the carrier with containers of food. A retired cowboy turned cook after his arthritis prevented him from doing ranch work, Silas Burrows had some definite ideas on how Blake should conduct his life and he didn’t mind sharing them every chance he got. Having a wife show up unexpectedly, one that Blake hadn’t told Silas about, definitely got the old boy started. As sure as the grass was green, Blake knew he hadn’t heard the end of what Silas had to say on the matter, either.

      “I’ll have dinner on the table by the time you return,” she said as she started removing the food from the carrier to set it on the butcher-block island.

      Blake watched her for a moment before he gritted his teeth and left the room. Karly had changed into a pair of khaki camp shorts and an oversize T-shirt while he was gone. She shouldn’t have looked the least bit appealing. But he’d be damned if just seeing her in the baggy shorts, shapeless shirt and bright pink flip-flops didn’t have him feeling as restless as a range-raised colt.

      Disgusted with himself, he marched up the stairs and down the hall to the master bedroom. How could he want a woman who had rejected him? Who had rejected his way of life and the land he loved?

      Setting his backpack on the cedar chest at the end of the bed, he walked into the adjoining bathroom to wash up. As he splashed cold water on his face to clear his head,

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