Honorable Rancher

Only, he hadn’t returned at all.

She’d been left with kids she loved more than life, a load of debt she might never crawl out from under, and renewed determination to hold on to the truth. A truth she had sworn no one—especially Ben Sawyer—would ever learn. A determination that Ben, so full of kindness and concern, undermined with almost his every breath.

Beside her, the teakettle screeched and spewed steam.

Like a dragon, P.J. always said.

She looked at it and shook her head. Dragon or no, the kettle didn’t scare her. Neither would Ben.

As long as she didn’t get too close to either of them.

With an exasperated sigh, she moved across to the coffeemaker and poured a full, steaming mug. She was stalling, delaying the moment she’d have to face him again, whether he scared her or not. Quickly she poured her tea. Then she stiffened her spine and stalked toward the doorway to the living room. There, she faltered and stood looking into the room.

Tall and broad and long limbed, he seemed to take up much more than his share of the couch. He had left his jacket in the truck. While she had gone to the kitchen, he’d undone his tie and the top few buttons on his shirt. The sight of that bothered her somehow. Maybe because he hadn’t hesitated to unwind, yet she remained strung tight.

He turned his head her way. His dark eyes shone in the lamplight. A smile suddenly curved his lips.

“I made myself comfortable,” he said.

“So I see.” Obviously he felt right at home, while she felt...things she definitely shouldn’t allow herself to feel.

“You haven’t changed much.”

Startled, she stared at him. Then she saw he hadn’t meant her at all. His gaze roamed the room, scrutinizing the well-worn plaid fabric on the couch and chairs, the long scratch on the coffee table where P.J. had ridden his first tricycle into it. Ben had been there that Christmas afternoon. He had bought that tricycle. Was he thinking about that now, too?

Nothing in the house had changed since he’d last visited. But she had. “No, not much different in here,” she answered with care, as if he would pick up on the distinction.

With equal care, she handed him his coffee. For a moment his fingers covered hers. She nearly lost her grip. The hot, dark liquid sloshed dangerously close to the point of no return. When he took the mug, pulling his fingers away, she gave a sigh of relief mixed with regret.

Still, she hesitated.

She glanced across the room at her rocking chair, so nice and far from the couch. But with such sharp edges on the rockers, ready to pierce the lace of her dress. She’d lost even that small chance of escape.

One of P.J.’s dinosaurs sat wedged between the couch cushions. She plucked it free and dropped it on the coffee table. Then, cradling her tea mug, she took a seat.

“Your hands still need warming?” he asked.

Again she stared. If she said yes, would he take her hand between his again, the way he had when she’d climbed from his truck? Her palms tingled at the thought. But of course he hadn’t meant that as an offer. How desperate must she be, wanting his attention so badly she found it where none existed? At least, that kind of attention?

She shook her head to clear it as much as to answer his question.

From under her lashes she watched him set the mug down on his thigh, holding it in a secure grip, as if he didn’t want to risk spilling coffee on her old couch. Or on his tuxedo pants.

He had large hands with long, strong fingers, firm to the touch from all the hours—all the years—he’d spent working with them. No town boy, Ben Sawyer. He’d always lived on his family’s large ranch on the outskirts of Flagman’s Folly.

Working with real estate, she knew to the acre how much land Ben Sawyer owned. Not as much as Caleb Cantrell now did, but a good deal more than most of the ranchers around here. She knew to the penny the worth of Ben’s land, too.

Not as much as his worth as a man. Or as a friend.

She took a sip of her tea, understanding she was stalling again. She could list Ben’s good points forever, but now she used them to keep her mind occupied so her mouth couldn’t get her into trouble.

“How’s the ranch?” she asked finally. A safe subject.

“Still there, which says something in this economy. You haven’t come out since we raised the new barn.”

So much for safe. “Work has kept me busy.”

“I’m sure. Well, I’ll need to have another potluck one of these days, before the weather turns.”

Again she wondered if his words held a hidden meaning. No. Not Ben. But she couldn’t be quite as open with him. Since Paul’s death, she’d made it a point of visiting Ben’s ranch with the kids only when he had a potluck. When there would be plenty of folks there. And even then she felt uneasy. Unable to trust her judgment around him.

Just as she felt now.

“We’ve got a couple of new ponies the right size for Lissa and P.J.”

Her laugh sounded strangled. “Please don’t tell them, or I’ll never get Lissa to stay home and focus on her homework.”

“Is she struggling with it?”

“Some. Mostly math. I try to help her, but a lot of it’s over my head. It’s gotten tougher since we were in school.”

“A lot of things have.” He sounded bitter. He smiled as if to offset the tone. “I can stop by and give her a hand.”

Oh, no. She had to nip that bad idea before it could blossom into another problem. “Thanks, but she started going for tutoring. With Nate. I think they’re catching on.”

“Good.” But he sounded disappointed.

Refusing to look at his face, she stared down at her tea. She couldn’t risk having him come around here, getting close to the kids again. Sending her emotions into overdrive every time she saw him.

“Well.” He gestured to the coffee mug. “What happened to my cookies?”

She looked up at him in stunned surprise. That was no casual question, was it? That was a direct quote of his own words, something he’d once said to her time and time again, beginning with the first week of her eighth-grade cooking class.

He sipped from the mug.

His averted gaze gave him away, proving he’d asked that last question deliberately. He’d meant to remind her.

Hadn’t he?

Yet, truthfully, everything he said and did, everything he was, only made her recall their long history.

Everything she thought and felt only made things worse.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m all out of cookies.”

“That’s no way to say thanks for a ride home, is it?”

“If I’m remembering correctly—” she paused, cleared her throat “—I offered coffee, not dessert.”