The Rancher's City Girl

He felt a smile come to his lips. “Would you care for a walk?”

“Sure.”

Cory put the bags of fruit in his truck on the way past, and they ambled up the street together. The clunk of his boots interspersed with the soft slap of her delicate sandals.

“It mustn’t have been easy to hear about your parents.” Eloise’s voice was so quiet that he almost didn’t catch her words.

“I guess there are two sides to every story,” he said. “I don’t know what I expected. My mother always held on to him, somehow. Wouldn’t say a bad word about him. He was my father and that counted for something. To her, at least.”

“He cares. He just doesn’t know how to say that.”

“I didn’t know he was married when they—” Cory cleared his throat.

“Maybe your mother didn’t know, either,” she suggested.

He nodded. He hoped that was the case, at least. It was too late to ask his mother now, but the idea that she’d been involved in someone else’s marriage tarnished something for him.

“His version doesn’t jibe with what I was told all my life,” Cory said finally. “My mother told me that my father had swept her off her feet. He was kind, knowledgeable. She said that ultimately the age difference had been too much. But that he was a good man, and she wished things had been different—for all of us.”

“But she didn’t want you to contact him?”

“She said it was better to give him his space. I accepted that. Looking back on it now, I can’t help wondering if she wanted to avoid facing his wife. Maybe she was ashamed.”

Eloise didn’t answer, and she looked down, her hair, now loose in the gentle breeze, obscuring his view of her face.

“Regardless, she loved him,” Cory said with a shrug.

Eloise looked up, pulling her hair back with a sweep of one hand. “You resent that, don’t you?”

“What was the use?” he asked. “He didn’t love her back. She spent a lifetime still caring about that man, and for what? He was married to someone else and saw her as nothing but an error in judgment.”

Eloise’s brow furrowed, and when the breeze shifted some curls away from her face, he thought he detected sadness in those green eyes.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice low.

“Fine.” A smile flickered to her lips and she turned her attention in his direction.

“Liar.” The smile hadn’t reached her eyes.

Eloise sighed, and she didn’t seem inclined to answer at first. After a moment of silence, she said, “My husband left me for his mistress.”

A rush of regret hit Cory like a blow to the gut. Here he’d been, trying to untie the knot of his parents’ affair, and this poor woman was the collateral damage of another affair. He winced. “I’m sorry. I’m being really callous.”

“No, not at all.” Eloise waved it off. “These things happen, I guess.”

“No, they don’t.” Cory caught the bitterness in his own tone. “People don’t just accidentally cheat on a spouse. It’s not like a lightning strike or a tsunami.”

Eloise’s voice was soft. “Good point. But my situation isn’t your father’s, and I don’t want to mix in my personal baggage.”

“If it helps, I think your ex-husband must be an idiot,” he said.

“It kind of does.” She laughed quietly.

“So, what do you normally do on your days off?”

“I paint.”

Cory raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Houses?”

“No, artistically. Pictures.” She laughed and shook her head. “It’s therapeutic. I’ve loved painting ever since I was a child, but I didn’t take it very seriously until Philip left.”

“Did it help you deal with all of that?” he asked.

Eloise nodded. “I realized that I’d done a lot for Philip in our marriage, and not a lot for myself. That needed to change. It’s only been a couple of years, but at least I’m honoring my gifts now.”

“Where’s your ex-husband?”

“He has a law practice in Billings. He’s remarried. They have a two-year-old daughter.”

He squinted in the afternoon sunlight—the math not lost on him. “He left you for the pregnant girlfriend?”

Eloise nodded. “Afraid so. Maybe it was the right choice. At least his daughter will grow up with a father.”

“And you’re alone.”

“Not entirely. I have God, friends, family. I’m not married, but I do have a full life.”

“I didn’t mean to imply—”

She shrugged. “I know, it’s okay.” She touched his arm, her cool fingers lingering on his wrist for a moment. “You’re a good guy, Cory. I can tell.”

He felt a glow of warmth at her words. He found his gaze traveling her face. Her fair complexion betrayed every passing emotion, her auburn lashes entranced him. How her husband could ever have stopped looking at her, he had no idea.

“What about you?” Eloise glanced up and he looked quickly away, not wanting to be caught staring. “What do you do on your downtime?”

“What downtime?” he joked, then grew more serious. “It’s all work and no play, but I love all of it. I guess the best part is riding. Have you ridden a horse before?”

She shook her head. “I never have. Shocking for a Montana girl, I know.”

“You should try it.” Cory smiled. “There’s no feeling like galloping across a field—pure freedom.”

“One day,” she agreed. “I need someone to teach me.”

“I could volunteer. You’d have ample opportunity if you came out to my ranch.”

“That’s up to my patient at the moment.”

He nodded. “Of course.”