Home on the Ranch: Wyoming Legacy by Rebecca Winters

Author:Rebecca Winters
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2018-06-13T17:04:35+00:00

Chapter 2

As unneighborly as it felt, Cliff didn’t say a word on the way to town. What were they going to talk about anyway? Discussing Martha didn’t seem exactly safe right now, although maybe he was wrong.

On the other hand, he didn’t want to renew his relationship with Holly. Not in the least. A summer-long torrid affair a decade ago had left him scarred and her...What had it done to her? She’d turned her back on him readily enough, giving him all the reasons why she couldn’t stay in this county. She’d suffocate, she’d said. She had important things to do, she’d said. She was going to be a social worker and save the world, or at least part of the world.

He glanced at her from the corner of his eye and thought that social work didn’t seem to be agreeing with her. She looked entirely too thin, for one thing. He couldn’t judge anything else because she was grieving for her aunt, after all, but if he’d been looking at a horse showing those signs, he’d have been thinking “worn to the bone.”

Fatigue seemed to wrap around her. She didn’t really have the spark he remembered. Much as he didn’t want to, he wondered if social work had gutted her in some way.

But damned if he’d ask. She’d be leaving here in two weeks. By the grace of heaven, he hoped that wouldn’t be long enough to open scars or get him all tangled up in her barbed wire again.

Because that was how he thought of it: barbed wire. Her departure had scored him deep, like a million sharp knives. No freaking way was he going through that again.

Of course, he thought, she might not be the same person any longer. He might not even really be drawn to the woman she had become. So far he hadn’t seen much to like. It was almost as if he were the enemy, not the other way around.

Which got him to wondering how she had justified her cruelty. Ah, hell, leave that can of worms alone. Take her to the bank, help her buy and plant the damned tree, and then forget she was on the same part of the planet with him.

Listening to his own thoughts, however, yanked him up short. He was thinking like a kid again. She was causing him to revert. Well, to hell with that.

He was relieved the bank took only a few minutes. He showed the paper the lawyer had given him, Martha’s account was moved into a new one in Holly’s name and it was done.

Mercifully soon, they were climbing into his truck again. Holly, however, seemed to sag. Finally he couldn’t keep quiet any longer.

“What’s wrong?”

“Did you see how much money she left me? Cliff...I’m stunned.”

“Well, you could take a decent vacation. Looks like you need one.”

She bridled, but only a bit, not as she once had. What the hell had quenched her fire? “That’s more than a vacation or even ten.

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