Honorable Rancher

“Works for me. It’s nice to have folks around who know all about you.” Nice, except for their long list of expectations. He stayed quiet for a while, listening to the tires whip the road. “Well,” he said, finally, “I’d hate to live in a town where nobody knew his neighbor. Wouldn’t you?”

She didn’t answer. He smiled. She’d gone back to resting her eyes again. Her lashes left shadows on her cheeks. Her lips had softened. He wanted a taste. When he’d held her in his arms tonight, he’d had to fight like hell to keep from pulling her closer and kissing her.

Before they’d left the banquet hall, he’d thought about polishing off a whole bottle of champagne. He hadn’t had but two glasses, hours before. Maybe some extra would have given him justification for what he wanted to do now. To step outside everyone’s expectations. Especially hers.

He’d rejected the idea of more champagne, though. He’d never been much of a drinking man, and he wouldn’t use liquor as an excuse for his behavior.

Besides, he didn’t need alcohol to explain why he felt the way he did about Dana.

Glancing across the space between them again, he noted the way the pink lace of her dress lay across her shoulders. Then he forced his gaze to the road, where it belonged.

He had no right to look at her as she slept, unaware and vulnerable. No right to look at her at all. He was obligated to watch over her, to take care of her, as he’d promised his best friend he would do.

She’d made that damned hard for him.

He thought back to the day Paul had stopped by the ranch house on his last leave. The day Paul had asked him to watch over his family. Stunned by the request, Ben still had his wits about him enough to agree in an instant.

Paul and Dana and their kids were as close as family to him. He loved Lissa and P.J.—Paul Junior—as much as he loved his niece. He felt the same now about Stacey. Of course he would watch over them. All of them.

He had to keep that promise. Had to make sure he stayed close to Dana and the kids.

Staring at her with lust in his eyes probably wasn’t the best way to get her to go along with that.

She woke up again just as they reached Signal Street, the town’s main thoroughfare. He managed to smile at her briefly without making eye contact.

A few minutes later, after he’d turned onto her street and pulled into her driveway, he found himself grasping the steering wheel, as if his tight grip could rein him in, too. “Here we are,” he said inanely, his voice croaking.

When he rounded the truck and opened the passenger door, she gathered her dress in both hands. Balanced on the edge of her seat, she hesitated.

The light from the streetlamp a few feet away turned her face pale as whipped cream and her hair buttery gold. Her eyes sparkled. He stood, one hand palm up, heart thumping out of rhythm, the way he’d waited after he had invited her to dance.

Finally, she reached out to him. Though he’d had the heater on low for the ride home, her fingers felt cool. Automatically, he sandwiched her hand between his. “You should have said something,” he reproached her. “I’d have cranked up the heat.”

“It’s okay.” She slipped free and walked toward the house.

For a long moment, he watched the pink-skirted sway of her hips. Then he came to his senses. As she unlocked the front door, he caught up to stand beside her.

“Coffee?” she murmured.

Not such a good idea. He forced a laugh. “You’re not awake enough to make coffee.”

“Of course I am,” she shot back.

He’d said just the wrong thing. Or had he? Had his subconscious picked just the right words to guarantee she would argue the point?

She frowned and pushed the door open. “It will take more than the ride home to settle me down after all the excitement today. And it’s the least I can offer to say thank you.”

You could offer me something else.

Fingers now curled tight around a nonexistent steering wheel, he followed her into the house and the living room he’d once known so well.

“Have a seat,” she said. “I’ll be back soon.”

Obediently, he dropped onto her couch and sat back as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

Yeah. Sure. At least he’d gotten the obedient part right. No one in town would have cause to argue with him about that. Not even Dana.

He knew what folks thought of him—he’d lived with the knowledge his entire life. Good old Ben Sawyer. Well-behaved, safe, trustworthy Ben. Ben, the boy-next-door. All compliments, all good qualities to have.

The trouble was, not one of them appealed to him now.

The moment Dana went through the doorway into the kitchen, he sat up. He needed to pull himself together. To get control.

Not much chance of that, all things considered. Since grade school, he’d struggled to get a handle on the crush he had on her. Struggled—and failed. Years ago, that calf-love had turned into a powerful longing. And tonight, holding her in his arms had shot all his good intentions to pieces.

No matter how long or how hard he fought, he would never win.

Because no matter how wrong it made him, he wanted his best friend’s wife.

Chapter Three

Leaving Ben as quickly as her pink high heels could carry her, Dana escaped to the kitchen, seeking safety in her favorite room in the house. But once there, she felt the walls closing in. As a tenant, she couldn’t make permanent changes, but she’d decorated with blue-and-white towels and curtains to match her dishes. The normally soothing colors did nothing for her now.

Throughout the room, she’d hung so many houseplants Lissa often said they ate their meals in a garden. A jungle, five-year-old P.J. insisted every time.

An appropriate description at the moment, as she roamed the room like a tiger on the prowl, too tense to sit while the coffee brewed. Too aware of Ben just a few yards away.

After the dance, the ride home in the car and the sight of him sitting comfortably on her couch, nothing could calm her. And she had to go back into the living room and make polite conversation with him—at this hour! Why hadn’t she said goodbye at the door instead of inviting him in?

Not wanting to admit the answer to that, she gathered mugs and napkins and turned the teakettle on.

Ben would only want coffee, though. She knew that about him and a lot more. His coffee preference: black, no sugar. His favorite food: tacos. Favorite cookie: chocolate chip. Favorite ice cream: butter pecan. What she didn’t know about Ben Sawyer wouldn’t fill the coffee mug she’d set on the counter.

What he didn’t know about her...

She stared at the teakettle, which took its sweet time coming to a boil. Maybe better for her if it never did. Then she wouldn’t have to go into the other room and face the danger of getting too close to him and the disappointment of knowing all the things she wished for could never come true.

This reprieve in the kitchen couldn’t last much longer. Unfortunately. She had to stop obsessing about Ben.

She had to think of her kids. And her husband.

The reminder froze her in place.

Not all that long ago, her marriage had become about as solid as the steam building up in the teakettle. She and Paul had both known it, but before the issues between them could boil over, he announced he had enlisted. No warning. No compromise. No discussion. She’d barely had time to adjust to the news when he’d left for boot camp.

She had tried to see his decision as a positive change, a chance for him to come home a different man. For them to work things out. She owed her kids that. But the changes didn’t happen for the better. His letters slowed to a trickle and then stopped arriving altogether.

When he came home on leave, the brief reunion was more uncomfortable than happy. Their final time together, she’d made one last attempt to save their relationship—an attempt that had failed. By the end of his leave, they’d agreed to a divorce. And to keep that between them until he returned after his discharge.