Made in Texas!

“Are you inviting me to my own function?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes, I am.” He shrugged. “You’ll have to take a break sometime that night.”

Astonishment. Was that what he was seeing on her now?

He’d take it, because that meant he was getting a rise out of her, and if there was nothing about her that was interested in him, she wouldn’t have bothered with any kind of reaction.

“You’ve got some chutzpah,” she finally said.

“What I’ve also got is great taste in wine.”

“Do you really.”

“Sure. Tex and I used to sit on his porch swing and talk about everything while we drank from his spirits collection. He was a wine guy, you know.”

Donna had her arms crossed over her chest now. She seemed to do that around Caleb frequently.

“I saw his cellar,” she said. “It is extensive.”

“He had vintages shipped from all over—Napa Valley, Bordeaux, Chile, the Rioja region of Spain.”

She surveyed him, seemingly taking a second look at the cowboy loitering near the doorway, and hope sprang in Caleb’s chest.

Was she seeing beyond the Stetson and boots?

When she went back to straightening the pillows on the bed, he wasn’t so sure.

“Thanks for the offer for movie night,” she said, “but I’m afraid I won’t have a second to rest.”

Caleb let her excuse go. If she didn’t come around this weekend, he would find another time to be alone with Donna Byrd.

Before he went, he took one last opportunity to be complimentary, glancing around the room. “As I said yesterday, you’ve done a real good job with the ranch so far. You should be proud.”

She actually beamed, and it made him think that all the trouble she’d been dealing to him had been worth it.

“That’s nice of you to say,” she said.

“It’s just the truth.”

She sat on the bed, as if forgetting he was in the room and she had been using the mattress as an obstacle only a short time before.

Beds.

Donna Byrd.

Stop it, Caleb.

She said, “I’ve been going over the cabins again and again, looking for faults. It’s good to hear that we’ve been successful.”

“There’s one place that you left out of your makeover, though. Savannah’s old cabin.”

The name hovered, as if circling them.

But if he was going to get to know Donna Byrd, Savannah was bound to come up sometime or another.

“It’s a cabin that’s just as good as any of the others,” he said.

“No. That antique bed has been stored in there for a while, and… Well, we modernized the kitchen, but moving anything else around in there seems like bad luck or something.”

This was unexpected. Was she superstitious?

Maybe she would believe in fate just as much as he did—that his destiny was tied to hers….

“You know all about that bed,” she said. “Don’t pretend you’re oblivious.”

“Tex told me a thing or two about it.” But not everything, I suppose.

“I know that my great-grandmother first brought that bed to the ranch. This sounds like such a cliché, but she was supposed to have the gift of second sight, and she would dream of the future when she slept on that feather mattress.” She hesitated, then said, “I know other people who’ve had… experiences… in the bed, too.”

“You?”

It was dangerous to ask such a forthcoming question about beds. About Donna Byrd.

But she didn’t shoot him one of those what-are-you-all-about? looks this time. She only laughed a little.

“No, I haven’t been on the bed. But I do wonder if Savannah ever had dreams there since she stayed in that cabin.”

“You think you’ll have the chance to ask her?”

Now he knew he’d gone too far, because she stiffened.

Was she thinking that Byrd business was Byrd business, and he had no part of it?

Before he could decide, she gave him a curious look. “You haven’t been around the ranch in a while, right?”

Aha, she’d noticed. The news did him good. “Right.”

“There’s a lot that’s been happening with Savannah Jeffries. Nobody caught you up on all of it?”

“I’m afraid not.”

Donna sighed. “Tammy found a grocery receipt while she was snooping around Savannah’s cabin. You remember that day.”

The day Tammy had injured herself in the cabin and he’d first seen Donna. He’d never forget.

“A receipt?” he asked.

“It was from the time Savannah spent on the ranch, and there was a pregnancy test on it.”