Page 35 of Wyoming Heart

She blinked. “Well, because she likes him, I suppose.”

“He’s filthy rich,” he returned. “Even richer than her cousin Rogan.”

“Both of them put together wouldn’t equal half your net worth,” she pointed out, keeping her voice low so that she wasn’t overheard.

“Nobody around here knows that,” he replied. His face tautened. “I’ve been hunted like an elk by women for years. I got jaded, I guess. I don’t mind paying my way, but there’s a limit. I wanted to be liked for myself, not my wallet.”

“I’ve had the same problem,” she confessed on a sigh. “So I developed this scandalous reputation that puts most men off. With an exception here and there,” she mused, eyeing him.

He chuckled. “Well, I did take the reputation at face value, just at first.”

“I noticed.”

He cocked his head and studied her. “You really are beautiful,” he remarked quietly.

She smiled. “Thanks.”

“You could marry me, you know,” he said. “At least I’d be sure it wasn’t for what I had.”

She slid her hand over his on the table. “That’s very flattering and I appreciate the offer. But I’m done with marriage.” She pulled her hand back. “Never again.” Her eyebrows rose. “And you’ve been looking for a wife in all the worst places,” she added. “Models and actresses and debutantes aren’t looking for a man who digs postholes and babies calves.”

He chuckled. “I suppose not.” He had a sudden picture of Mina on her horse, holding the orphaned calf in front of her on the saddle. It made a warm place inside him. “But most women in that category aren’t rich. Some of them are predators and they can put on a good act. I’ve been with women who swore they were virgins.” He gave her a droll look. “And they never were.”

“I was, when I first married,” she said. “My husband never touched me. I felt absolutely worthless as a woman. After he died and I was rich with what he left me, I was infatuated with a man who seemed like the toughest, manliest man alive. So I married him.” She shivered. “I’d never really believed all those stories I heard about brutal men. I do now,” she said coldly. “I believe every word.”

He shook his head. “What a hell of a shame they don’t still have public stocks for men like that.”

“Jail is much better. My ex-husband is residing in a state prison for assault and battery. He killed another inmate five months into his sentence, so he’ll never get out now.” She smiled, a smile that was icy and never reached her eyes. “I like to think of him being some other inmate’s significant other.”

“Wicked woman,” he teased.

She shrugged. “I didn’t start out that way.” She smiled at him. “How long are you going to visit with your cousin?”

“I don’t know. A few weeks, maybe. My foreman is almost as good as I am about ranch management and he calls me if there are any problems he can’t handle. There won’t be. My dad is coming down with his new wife so she can experience ranch life. He always managed the ranch while I was off marketing cattle and talking business. I don’t expect his new wife will last long if she comes with him. None of his women ever took to cattle and dust.”

She drew in a long breath and waited until the waitress took their orders before she spoke. “Your father’s lifestyle affected you, I’ll bet. You didn’t grow up in a stable home with two parents who loved each other.”

“I did, actually. My mother was a little saint. After she died, Dad seemed to lose his mind. He stayed with the model for a few years, but after that, he set new records for promiscuity. I guess maybe it did affect me.”

“My parents married just out of high school,” she recalled with a smile. “They loved each other, and me, so much. He had a heart attack at the age of thirty-five and died in the doctor’s office. It was so massive that nothing would have saved him. My mother grieved and grieved. She kept going for me, but her heart was in the grave with my father. When I was twenty-one she went on a cruise and fell overboard. They never found the body.”

He winced. “That must have been traumatic.”

She nodded. “It’s so much worse when people die like that. You never really give up hope that maybe somebody fished them out, they lost their memory, things like that.” She looked up. “I know that she drowned. I just couldn’t accept it, for a long time. Finally, I bought one of those urns for people who are cremated. I put her favorite jewelry and some hairs from her hairbrush, a ring she liked, a Christmas ornament, and sealed it up. It sits on my mantel. So I have something of her near me.”

“That’s a special kind of memorial,” he said. “I never would have thought of it.”

“An innovation,” she said. She smiled. “It helped me adjust to life without her.”

“We buried my mother in the cemetery at our local Methodist church. I put flowers on her grave on holidays and her birthday, for me and my brothers.”

“I do that for my father.”

The waitress came back with their order.

“Are we going to the dance Thursday night?” he asked.

She smiled. “We’ll be gossiped about.”

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