Cowgirl Bride

“Don’t be stupid. We might all live on ranches around here, but at heart, this is a small town. Everyone knows everyone else’s business.” She damned her fair skin and hoped her tan was dark enough to prevent him from noticing the blush stealing up her cheeks. She hadn’t been asking—exactly. She’d been listening. There was a difference. “You’ve always been an object of interest.”

His mouth straightened. “How much did they talk when I ran off with Claire?”

Sierra swallowed. She didn’t want to recall that time. The whispered comments, the pitying stares, the endless days with nothing to do but get through the pain. “It was a long time ago. I don’t remember,” she lied. If only she’d been able to forget. If only she could forget now.

She turned to leave. It no longer mattered if he thought she was running away. Better to run and be whole than stay and risk more hurt.

“Sierra, wait.”

She hurried to her horse, but he caught up with her before she reached the animal. He grabbed her right arm in a grip that neither bruised nor offered any chance of escape.

“Did you think about my job offer?” he asked. “I was serious. I want you to be the foreman on my ranch.”

She lost herself in his face. In the handsome lines that had been etched into her brain. She noticed new lines fanning out by his dark eyes and the first few hints of gray at his temples. He’d grown up some, but she would have known him anywhere. This was the face she’d thought she would wake up to for the rest of her life. The face that had haunted her for ten years. There was no going back and the only way to go forward was to go on without him.