Page 4 of At the Rancher's Pleasure

Thankfully Gina started questioning that narrative in her late teens and, these days, her relationship with her daughter was solid...but Ross was a harder nut to crack.

However, he’d recently opened the lines of communication between them, and Sarabeth wasn’t going to waste this opportunity to reestablish a relationship with her older child. And she wanted to spend some time with her beautiful grandbaby, Ben.

Forty-eight years old and she was a grandmother...the thought made her smile.

Her kids, and Ben, were the only reason she was back in this godforsaken town. She didn’t like not having two states and thousands of miles between herself and her ex-husband, and full-time snake, Rusty Edmond.

He can’t hurt you anymore: you are older, wiser and have a great deal more resources now than when you did when you walked away from Elegance Ranch long ago.

It was strange, and rather wonderful, that she no longer recognized the woman she’d been when she’d married Rusty Edmond a few months after her eighteenth birthday. That timid, insecure, desperate-for-approval girl didn’t resonate with her anymore, but Sarabeth had to give herself credit—she’d fought hard, grown and evolved to become the person she was today.

She liked herself nowadays; she could look in the mirror and smile. Sure, she wasn’t perfect, but neither was she the train wreck she’d been when she walked out on her marriage, so anxious and desperate to please.

She’d grown up, thank God, and was smarter about people, about love, about relationships. She now accepted that her belief in happy-ever-afters had been badly misplaced, that her faith in fairy-tale heroes had been nonsensical. After years of disappointing relationships, Sarabeth believed her happiness wasn’t dependent on a man, that love was a myth and she was wholly and fully responsible for her own bliss.

It had taken her a damn long time, and too many tears, to get to this point in her life.

But the payoff had been worth it in the end. She was strong, feisty and emotionally and financially independent. And after all she’d been through, she could handle her philandering, manipulative and deceitful ex-husband and the rampant gossip her returning to Royal would generate.

Sarabeth removed her phone from the pouch strapped to her upper arm and checked her fitness app, taking in her pace and her distance. Running on the ranch was going to be a nice change from her treadmill or pounding the sooty streets of LA.

It was her drug and her only addiction. As a teenager, cross-country running had been her way to get out of the house and away from her pageant obsessed mother, Betty. It had been her favorite way to avoid wardrobe selection prep or practice on her violin for an upcoming competition. Pageants had been her mom’s obsession, and it had been a world Sarabeth loathed.

And when Rusty Edmond—older, debonair, rich and slick—gave her a way to leave that life by way of marriage, she’d leaped at the opportunity. Betty had been disappointed not to take her all the way to Miss America—as if!—but her only child marrying a rich Texas rancher had been a grand second prize.

Betty had been gutted when her marriage ended and, up until the day she died, blamed Sarabeth for not sticking by her man...

Blergh.

Sarabeth stood up, irritated. It had been a while since she’d thought about her mom, her marriage and her pageant-queen past. She’d spent one night in Royal and she was already being ambushed by painful memories...

It was far more fun to think about her hunky landlord.

Two

The next day, Sarabeth heard the sound of hoofbeats and lifted her forehead off her steering wheel to look in her rearview mirror, softly cursing when she saw two riders trotting down the road in her direction.

Although his face was shadowed by the low brim of his black Stetson, Sarabeth instantly recognized the younger of the two riders. Brett Harston. She watched them approach, admiring the rancher’s broad shoulders and powerful thighs as he easily controlled the powerful black stallion with a deft touch on the reins, a squeeze of his thighs.

Yep, he was still sinfully sexy. Dammit.

Attraction raised the hair on her forearms and lust scuttled up her skin, making her breasts tingle and her nipples contract. Hot heat settled between her thighs and she squirmed in her seat. Why was she reacting like this? Sure, it had been a while since she’d had sex—a long, dry spell—but this was ridiculous. In her past relationships, sexual attraction came only after she made an emotional connection so her visceral reaction to this younger man confused her. What was going on here? And why did she keep wondering what he looked like naked? Or how it would be to make love to him in the afternoon, in the sunlight, in that lap pool or in the hot tub she could see from her loft bedroom in the cottage?

She was acting like she was considering having a fling with the man, which was crazy. Sarabeth dropped her forehead back onto the steering wheel and she groaned. Why was she even going there, allowing her thoughts to drift in that direction?

Even if he did find her attractive, which wasn’t a given thanks to their age difference, Brett was just coming off a bad relationship. He’d left Lexi Alderidge the day before they were due to marry, practically at the alter—Gina had filled her in on the gossip when she stopped by last night—and the last thing on his mind was falling into bed with a stranger.

Guys were different from girls, and they had different ways of coping with loss and change. Maybe a rebound fling or a one-night stand was exactly what Brett needed to do. Butnotwith Rusty Edmond’s ex-wife, Royal’s other hot topic of gossip.

Sarabeth banged her hand on the wheel, annoyed that she couldn’t stop thinking about him.

“Hi.”

She lifted her head to see Brett’s face inches from her own on the other side of the open window, then looked past him to see his companion standing between the two horses off the road, twelve or so feet from them. “Hi back.”

“Car problems?” Brett asked, placing his strong arms on the frame of her window. Sarabeth shook her head, idly noticing that he had the longest and thickest lashes she’d ever seen on a man, that his eyes held flecks of gold at the center and that, under his soft stubble, he had a small scar on his bottom lip.

He smelled of horse and soap, deodorant and hay...healthy and outdoorsy. Sarabeth felt the urge to place her lips on the cords of his strong neck, to taste the tang of his skin.

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