The Bridal Promise. Virginia Dove

sense of betrayal.

      Matt idly watched a very fat blue jay repeatedly dive-bomb a squirrel. That brought him back to the present. It dawned on him, as he looked around, that he’d never brought Cadie out here during their brief marriage. He’d never brought his wife to a place he considered so important, so much his. Never shared it with her. He couldn’t. This spot was forever associated with memories of Perri.

      He felt the fury drain away as he accepted that he wanted her. He wanted Perri with a single-mindedness of purpose that sooner or later would leave his heart on the line. He’d just have to find a way around the fact that Perri Stone was settling back into his blood and soul with an ease he wouldn’t have thought possible.

      Matt couldn’t trust himself to take the best road for either of them. Hurting her again would most likely hurt him down to the ground. But for the life of him he couldn’t stop himself from behavior that was bound to cause them both sorrow.

      How many more times was he going to hurt Perri Stone? The same woman he had once wanted to protect for a lifetime? How many times now had he attempted deliverance, some sort of atonement? Hadn’t that been the real reason he had married Cadie?

      After Perri left, he had married a sweet, fragile girl who had needed him to take care of her. Matt laughed ruefully. Leila had secretly despised Cadie as much as she had Perri, maybe more. It had really killed Leila not to be able to call upon Cadie’s honor as a tool for manipulation. Cadie hadn’t understood honor. All she had understood was competing.

      What he hadn’t understood at the time was that he had been the prize. His own willful pride hadn’t let him see that simple fact. He had been so sure life was never going to break Matt Ransom. So convinced that life would have to bend, not himself. He got back in his car and started for home.

      All Cadie had wanted was to get married to someone “better” than either of her sisters and have a baby. She had had no plan, no thought about what would happen after that. She had not been prepared for a reality beyond the point where she would reach her goal. So when she had miscarried the second time, to her it was as if she’d lost everything.

      Cadie had gotten in the car one day, shortly after being released from the hospital, and headed west. She hadn’t given herself time to heaL If Matt could have done something for her, she hadn’t let him know what it was.

      Funny about that. She had zeroed in early and locked onto his need to take care of his family, to have children to carry on for the land. Well, he had failed at all of mat and now he’d had a bellyful of women who needed someone to take care of them.

      Near Tucumcari, New Mexico, she had been killed by a drunk driver during a sudden, violent storm. Cadie had pulled over, seeking the protection of an overpass and had been plowed right into the concrete wall. Bad luck. Sorry for your loss, Ransom.

      It had left him wild, mean with grief. But Ganme had turned Matt around. She had never been afraid of his rage. Gannie was someone who could love him and would stay during the hard times. He hadn’t managed to drive her away. God, he missed her more than he did his dead wife and his mother combined. He steered the car away from the lake.

      Good thing for Perri that she bugged out when she did, he thought. No, it hadn’t been Perri’s fault. Bad luck. Sorry for your loss, you sorry fool.

      And so he had grieved, finally. Thanks to Gannie, he hadn’t had to do it alone. Matt reckoned that maybe being the one left behind at home to deal with broken dreams hadn’t changed him too much for the worse.

      If not, it was thanks to Gannie. He grinned in spite of everything. Matt didn’t think Gannie would be too proud of his behavior today. He knew he wasn’t. I’m not much impressed with your attitude, Matthew. He could just hear her now.

      He’d gone out of his way today to needle Perri. He had meant to keep it up until he had gotten a response from her other than that cool-handed, white-gloved crap. He had had to make her lose her composure, just to prove to himself she was not as immune to him as she had seemed.

      And he had been so sure he could bully her into bending to his will; into doing what had to be done. He hadn’t even thought through how she might stand and take it instead. And how that might hurt her. His reasoning had centered on how she had faded away without a fight twelve years before. Well, obviously, that was twelve years gone.

      He shouldn’t have taken it as far as he had today. He had to work with the woman. He had to cooperate with her in order to get a job done and it wasn’t going to be easy now that he had kissed her.

      She had every right to be furious with him, and hurt. He had been out of line to call her honor into question like that. Gledhill meant as much to Perri as it did to him and he knew it. And on top of that, Matt’s own fury, fueled by an ever-present despair, had caused him to screw up even that, what had been the first moment of real tenderness he had felt in a long, lonely time.

      He turned into the drive toward his home. As he drove under the wrought-iron arch, announcing to anyone passing by that this was Ransom Horse Farm, a Cadillac and a Lincoln pulled in behind him. Matt steeled himself to be cordial to the arriving owners and mentally rehearsed what he had to say about their horses.