Page 19 of The Christmas Cowboy

“You don’t need to tell me that. You’d never desert a woman who was having your child. I mean, you married me and it’s not even your baby.”

She made him sound like a hero. He wasn’t. He benefitted from the marriage too. “So what happened in your relationship?”

Taking a seat on a rock, she sighed but answered. “I was in high school. We were both seniors. He was a football player. I thought I loved him.” He stayed silent and she continued. “He was jealous and possessive. At first it made me feel good. He was cute and popular and my friends were always telling me how lucky I was. Then one day I was talking to a friend, a guy, and he got really mad. He hit me.”

“What did you do?” He couldn’t imagine her putting up with that, but she’d been young. The rock she sat on was large and flat, so he sat beside her. The weather was gorgeous, chilly but not too cold, blue Montana sky without a cloud in it.

“This is the part that makes me feel so stupid. I broke up with him and he spent the next two weeks trying to get me to forgive him, and take him back. He swore he’d never hit me again. I believed him. I forgave him.”

“What happened after that?”

“Exactly what you think. He did it again, not too long after I took him back. So I broke up with him again. This time for good.”

“Did he try again?”

“Yes. He pestered me until I threatened to tell Riley. After that he left me alone.”

Liam imagined he would have. Everyone around there knew Riley was protective of his sister. “So Riley didn’t know what had happened?”

“God, no.” She shook her head with a shudder. “Riley would’ve killed him. Luckily for him, Riley was getting his degree in equine studies so he wasn’t home a lot.”

“I was around then. You should’ve asked me.”

“Are you kidding? You didn’t know I was alive then. There’s no way I’d have asked you for help.”

“Believe me, I knew you were alive. But you were way too young. I felt like a dirty old man to even think about you like that.”

She tilted her head. “Apparently I’m not too young now.”

“You’re grown now. It’s different. When you were seventeen, I was twenty-five. That was not going to happen. Even if I’d lost my mind, Riley would have killed me. And he’d have been right.”

Chapter Eight

She wasn’t sureshe believed him. “Was that the only reason? Our age difference?”

“It was the main one.”

And it had been a good one. Looking back, there was no way a seventeen-year-old girl should or could have been with a twenty-five-year-old man. She didn’t think it was even legal. Still.

“I’ve been grown for several years now. You’ve never acted interested.”

He shrugged. “I didn’t think you’d be interested in me.”

Did the man have no clue how hot he was? Apparently not. She bet it was that bitch Caroline’s fault. And then Cici—who Liam had brought to town—fell in love with Logan, which couldn’t have helped. Still, she didn’t imagine he’d been celibate since Caroline jilted him. Even if she hadn’t heard anything about him and another woman until Cici came to the ranch. Had he and Cici slept together? Did she want to know?

Probably not.

Wait a minute. Was he saying he could have had feelings for her? She wanted to ask him but what if he said no? Or worse, said yes and didn’t mean it? Because he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Shit.

“I never had a serious relationship before Caroline. I couldn’t find—wasn’t even looking for—anything permanent. Then I met Caroline and I thought she was the one for me. Obviously, I was wrong.”

“Caroline was a fool.”

“It turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to me. I think she’d known for a good while that we weren’t suited. She didn’t want to live on a ranch for one thing.”

“Did you know that when you asked her to marry you?”

“I knew she was apprehensive about living there but I thought she’d get over it. I thought she knew I was a rancher and wasn’t ever going to be anything else.”

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