The Rancher's One-Week Wife (8 page)

She couldn’t in good conscience allow him to shoulder all of the blame. “You wouldn’t have kissed me if I hadn’t let you.”

His deep chuckle sent heat pulsing through her veins. “Yeah, I noticed you weren’t protesting.”

“That’s the problem.” She sighed. “I should have.”

He glanced over at her. “Why didn’t you?”

“I...wanted you to kiss me,” she admitted.

“But you didn’t want to want me kissing you.” It wasn’t a question.

“No.”

“Sweetheart, a wife wanting her husband to kiss her is allowed,” he said, reaching over to take her hand in his. The moment their palms touched a delightful tingling sensation streaked up her arm.

She did her best to ignore it and tried to focus on what he’d said. “That’s the problem, Blake. Three months from now we’ll be divorced. I shouldn’t want you kissing me, not anymore.”

He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “Have you asked yourself why you do?”

His question took her by surprise. But as she tried to think of an answer, she decided it probably wasn’t wise to delve too deeply into the reason behind her wanting his affection. If she did, she was certain she wouldn’t be all that comfortable with the answer.

“You’re only going to be here a few more days, Karly,” he said pragmatically. “And I give you my word that nothing is going to happen between us unless that’s what you want. But I’m not going to lie to you and tell you it isn’t what I want.”

As he drove the truck up the lane to the foreman’s cottage, Karly thought about what Blake had said. What
did
she want?

Eight months ago, she’d been confident she was making the right decision when she’d said yes to his marriage proposal. She had been certain at the time she married him that she loved Blake and wanted them to spend the rest of their lives together. But when she’d returned to Seattle her practical side had taken over. That’s when she’d known ending things was the right call—for both of them.

She’d questioned falling in love with him so quickly and feared that their feelings for each other might not last. Then she’d thought about her parents. Her mother had been in love with her father, but in the end it hadn’t been enough for her. She’d become bitter and resentful, and Karly had borne the brunt of that bitterness.

Karly loved her own career as an import buyer—loved the travel to foreign countries—and feared that love might not be enough for her, either, if she had to give up all of that. Had she been wrong about her feelings for her job? Could she have been happy being the wife of a ranch foreman in a remote part of Wyoming when all she’d ever known was living in a city with conveniences just steps from her apartment door?

She’d been so sure of everything when she left Seattle to come to the ranch for him to sign the new set of divorce papers. But then she’d seen him—stayed with him, had him treat her like his wife—and the doubts about her decision had set in.

She might have been able to keep things in perspective if she hadn’t been stranded on the ranch by the airport workers’ strike. She’d have gone back to Washington, filed the papers for the dissolution of their marriage and resumed her career with the confidence she was doing the right thing.

The trouble had come from seeing him again, being in his arms and experiencing the magic of his kiss. It all reminded her of what she’d wanted when she’d walked down that aisle in Vegas—what she was giving up—and had her questioning herself at every turn.

Had there been serious flaws in her reasoning? By insisting they continue with the divorce was she making the biggest mistake of her life? Would he even give her a second chance if she did want for them to try to make their marriage work?

Karly glanced over at Blake when he parked the truck beside the foreman’s cottage. The way he held her—kissed her—he seemed open to rekindling what they’d found together in Las Vegas. But he hadn’t once mentioned wanting her to change her mind. He’d even signed the divorce papers without a word of protest or even the slightest hesitation.

She sighed when he got out of the truck and she waited for him to walk around to open the passenger door. She wasn’t nearly as sure of everything as she’d been when she arrived here. And the only way she was going to determine what was best would be to stay with Blake on the ranch and give herself the time to sort it all out.

Six

O
n Sunday morning when Blake walked back into the foreman’s cottage after getting their breakfast from the bunkhouse cook, Karly was seated at the table waiting for him. “I thought you’d still be asleep,” he said as he set the containers of food on the kitchen island.

“My phone woke me,” she said, her tone pensive. He noticed her tightly clasped hands resting on the table in front of her. Her knuckles were white and she looked like she had something pretty heavy on her mind.

Without giving it a second thought, he walked over to where she sat, took her hands in his and pulled her to her feet. “What’s wrong?” he asked, loosely holding her to him. He wasn’t sure why, but it bothered him to think she might be worried about anything at all.

Instead of her backing away as he thought she might, she wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head against his chest. “The strike at the Denver airport is over. The airline can get me on a flight out of Cheyenne tomorrow morning.”

She didn’t sound overly happy about it and he took that as a sign that despite what she’d said last night on the way home from the main house, she wanted to stay with him a little longer. And that was just fine with him. He told himself that he was okay with it because he hadn’t yet discovered what had originally changed her mind about them. But if he was perfectly honest with himself, he would have to admit that he wanted to spend more time with her before he had to say goodbye and watch her drive out of his life for good. The way he saw it, having one more day with her was worth whatever hell he would have to face of a lifetime without her.

“You don’t have to leave.” He put his index finger beneath her chin to tilt her head up until their eyes met. “Why don’t you stay a few more days?”

“I can’t afford to miss work,” she said, shaking her head. “I only have a couple of vacation days left and I’ll need to use those for the stop in Lincoln County to file the...d-divorce.”

She stumbled over the word and he would bet nearly every dime he had that she was starting to second-guess her decision. “Can you work from here?”

She looked thoughtful. “You mean telecommute?”

He nodded. “The signal here is good, but it’s a lot better over at the main house. You could work from there.”

“As nice as your boss is, I’m sure he’ll draw the line at some stranger using up all of his bandwidth,” she stated.

Blake shrugged. “Like I said, he’s not staying there right now. When he had the Wi-Fi installed, he made sure it was unlimited usage with no slowdowns.” He purposely omitted that Blake himself was one of the internet company’s principal shareholders.

She looked thoughtful a moment before she shook her head. “I didn’t bring my laptop.”

“Not a problem,” he said, smiling. He knew she was giving it serious consideration and he was determined to convince her to stay on the Wolf Creek Ranch a little longer. “You can use mine.”

“Are you sure?” she asked. “You might have something on it that’s private.”

He shook his head. “I only use it for breeding records and to keep track of the cattle we’ll be sending to market. There’s more than enough room on the hard drive for anything you’ll be doing and if you need a special program we can always download it.”

“I’ll have to call the office on Tuesday morning and explain that I’m going to be working from here for a few days,” she said, her expression thoughtful. “I’ve telecommuted in the past, so it shouldn’t be a problem to set it up. And I’ll need to email one of my coworkers to have her send me a couple of files I’ll need.”

“Then it’s settled,” he said, refusing to acknowledge just how important it had become to him that she extended her stay. “After breakfast we’ll go over to the mansion and get everything arranged in the office.”

She frowned. “Blake, I know you say your boss is easygoing and won’t mind, but I’m sure he’d have a big problem with me using his office.”

“There’s a writing desk in one of the upstairs bedrooms,” he said, thinking quickly. “We’ll just move over to the mansion and you can work out of that bedroom.”

“That’s even worse, Blake,” she said, shaking her head. “We can’t just move into your boss’s home.” She stared at him. “Who is this man and why do you insist on taking advantage of his good nature so often?”

He took a deep breath. He should tell her the truth. He’d boxed himself into a corner and he had nobody to blame but himself. If he told her now that he was the owner of the Wolf Creek Ranch she thought he was taking advantage of, she’d think he had been playing her for a fool or, worse yet, that he had been trying to hide his assets from her because of the divorce. But the longer he waited, the worse it was going to be when she did find out.

Deciding he needed to dial things back a little while he tried to figure out the best time and way to tell Karly he was the man in question, Blake backtracked. “You’re right. We don’t want to take advantage while he’s away from the mansion. But there’s one place that I know he won’t mind you using.”

“Where’s that?” she asked, seemingly distracted from finding out who the owner was—at least for the time being.

“There’s a table in the library just off the family room that would be the perfect place for you to work,” he said, bringing his hand up to twine his fingers in her silky blond hair. “It’s quiet in there and you won’t have to worry about anyone interrupting you or you using a room the boss would find objectionable.” He lowered his head to brush her perfect lips with his. “And when you take a break for lunch all you’ll have to do is walk down the hall to the kitchen and Silas will make you something to eat.”

Unable to resist, he gave in to temptation and settled his mouth over hers. He knew he was playing with fire and would most likely get burned by his weakness for her. But he couldn’t seem to control himself when he was around Karly. It had been that way in Vegas and it was that way now. Whenever he was with her, all he could think about was holding her close, kissing her until she sagged against him and making love to her until they both collapsed from the sheer pleasure of being together.

As he deepened the kiss, she put her arms around his neck and melted against him. Her soft curves pressed against his rapidly hardening body and the sweetness that was uniquely Karly caused his heart to thump against his chest like a jungle drum. No other woman had ever fit against him so perfectly or responded to his kiss as readily.

When she moaned softly and snuggled even closer, he realized that she felt his arousal straining against his fly. The fact that she was as hot for him as he was for her sent adrenaline pumping through his veins at the speed of light. Whatever caused her to want out of their brief marriage apparently had nothing to do with her desire for him. That was as strong, if not stronger, than it had been when they’d taken that trip down the aisle at that little chapel on the Vegas strip.

Barely able to resist the urge to take off both of their clothes and make love to her right there in the kitchen, he forced himself to ease away from the kiss. “Sweetheart, as much as I’d like to take this all the way to a satisfying conclusion for both of us, I think we’d better take a time-out.”

Her smooth porcelain cheeks wore the blush of passion and he sensed that if he hadn’t called a halt to things, she probably wouldn’t have, either. That’s when he knew beyond a shadow of doubt that there was every likelihood they would be making love before she left. And soon.

“I, uh, y-yes.” She looked a little dazed. “I’ll get flatware and coffee mugs.”

While she walked over to get the items from the cabinets, Blake took a deep breath and set the two plates of bacon, scrambled eggs and hash browns on the table, along with a thermos of coffee. How the hell could a man feel like he’d done the right thing and, at the same time, regret doing it?

He wasn’t sure. But he knew now that he needed to come clean with Karly and tell her that he owned the ranch before things progressed any further between them. Karly was intelligent and she’d already started questioning why he kept taking advantage of the mysteriously absent ranch owner. It was just a matter of time before she figured it out or someone unwittingly told her.

And the worst part of all, his reasons for keeping it from her were making less sense, even to him, with each passing day.

* * *

Karly sat at the library table in the log mansion and looked around at the volumes of books on the shelves lining the room. The owner’s tastes were eclectic and included ranching manuals, nonfiction, autobiographies and novels by some of the most popular, bestselling authors of the past one hundred years.

As she continued to look around, she couldn’t help but smile. Unlike a lot of home libraries, which felt gloomy and heavy with the knowledge of the ages, the room felt cozy and extremely inviting. So much so that she could imagine herself spending endless hours on a rainy or snowy day curled up with a good book and a warm, comfy afghan on the big leather sofa in front of a crackling fire in the stone fireplace.

She rose to her feet and walked over to look out one of the windows at the surrounding mountains. Now that she’d visited the ranch, she could understand why Blake had told her he couldn’t leave Wyoming for life in a bustling city. The land was beautiful and although she loved the green beauty of both the Cascade and Olympic Mountains, she couldn’t look out any of the windows in her apartment and see them. If she wanted to enjoy the lush scenery, she had to take a ferry across Puget Sound or drive out of the city to the thick forests beyond.

But here on the Wolf Creek Ranch, every window had a spectacular view of the Laramie Mountains and experiencing nature took little more than walking out the door.

She sighed. When she had returned to Seattle after their whirlwind courtship and wedding, she had reasoned that living so far from a city would eventually end her and Blake’s marriage the way it had with her parents’. She’d even convinced herself that she was doing what was best for both of them—that there would be less emotional pain by ending it so early in the union than there would be a few years down the line.

But she had to admit that although most of her conclusions made sense, they weren’t her only motivation for insisting on a divorce. The main, most compelling reason that she’d refused to move to Wyoming with her new husband had been due to fear—not that he would fail her, but that she would fail him.

She had been afraid she would eventually feel about Blake the way her mother had felt about her father. And that was something she wasn’t going to let happen. She cared too much for him to blame him for things he had no control over.

Martina Ewing had become a bitter, resentful woman once she returned to New York and learned she had lost her place in the world of high fashion. Until her death just a few years ago, Karly’s mother had blamed Karly’s father for the loss of her career, her unhappiness and just about everything else unpleasant that happened in her life. She still managed to find fault with him, even though he’d passed away not long after they divorced. Karly sometimes wondered if her mother had even blamed him for leaving her saddled with a child to raise.

But in Karly’s attempt to protect Blake from the possibility that she would turn out to be as unreasonable as her mother, had she allowed her fear to deprive them of a real chance at happiness?

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Blake asked, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her back against his solid chest.

Startled, she jumped. “I didn’t know you had returned to the house.”

After they’d finished breakfast, he had given her his laptop and driven them over to the mansion to set up her workspace in the library. Once he’d made sure the internet connection was the speed she needed, he’d told her he was going out to see that the indoor arena’s floor had been properly prepared for the training of a new stallion and left her to familiarize herself with his computer and to download a couple of programs she would need to do her job. But she suspected that had been an excuse to give her the time and space to think about the direction her visit had taken and what she wanted to do about it.

They were both aware that the chemistry between them was as strong as ever and that it wouldn’t take much to send it spiraling out of control. It had almost happened last night in the hot tub and then again this morning when he kissed her.

“Did you get everything ready to start to work?” he asked, sending a wave of goose bumps shimmering over her arms.

She nodded. “And I went ahead and sent the email to my coworker so it’s waiting for her when she arrives at the office Tuesday morning.”

“I’m glad you’ll be here at the mansion.” He brushed her long hair out of the way to nibble kisses down the column of her neck. “I have to start working in the arena with the new stallion and I’d hate for you to spend the day alone over at the foreman’s cottage.”

“I was going to ask you about that,” she said, attempting to get her mind off how good he was making her feel. “Why are the barns and corrals at the foreman’s cottage instead of here at the main ranch house?”

His low chuckle caused her knees to wobble. “Sweetheart, in the warmer months, having the barns and livestock a quarter of a mile away makes entertaining guests out on the patio a lot more pleasant.”

“Oh, I hadn’t thought about the dust and the noise the animals make,” she commented.

“Along with Essence of Barnyard floating on the breeze. It doesn’t inspire people to attend a cookout or pool party,” he said, laughing.

Smiling, she nodded. “It makes perfect sense now.” She frowned suddenly and turned in his arms to face him. “But the barn is no more than fifty yards from the cottage and I haven’t noticed a lot of dust or barnyard odors at the foreman’s cottage.”

“When the owner’s family established the Wolf Creek Ranch back in the late 1800s, they made sure to build the barns and outbuildings downwind of the house.” He shrugged. “I think that held true for most ranches back then. They figured out which way the wind usually blows and planned their layout accordingly.”

“So the foreman’s cottage was the original ranch house?” she asked. She hadn’t really thought about it before, but he had mentioned the owner building the mansion after he bought the ranch a couple of years ago.