A Baby Changes Everything. Marie Ferrarella

been top dog at the last ranch, but you’ve met your match here. We’re going to get together, you and me, and be friends. That’s a promise.”

      He made no attempt to reach out to touch the horse, or even to enter the corral. The horse required his space. For now Cruz would respect that. But the animal did need to get accustomed to his presence in his world.

      Training would begin early tomorrow morning, before he even started working with the others. Half an hour, twice a day. He didn’t have the time, but he’d find it. Even if it meant doing some more delegating.

      An excitement pulsed through Cruz. He hadn’t felt this alive in a long time.

      While watching her reflection in the wardrobe mirror, Savannah realized that her hands were shaking ever so slightly as she smoothed the sides of her dress.

      She stared down at her hands. They were also tingling. And damp.

      She shook her head and silently laughed at herself. You’d think she was going out on her first date. There had to be a hundred butterflies all vying for airspace inside her stomach.

      For once, she didn’t feel like collapsing or throwing up. The newest Perez-in-the-making had decided, for now, to cooperate with its mother.

      Thank God for small favors, she thought.

      The moment her father-in-law had come for Luke, she’d dashed off to Red Rock to buy things for the dinner she wanted to make for Cruz.

      But before going to the supermarket, she’d stopped by the mall. Not to buy a new dress, but a new nightgown. Something just sheer enough to get his blood pumping in double time.

      She’d picked out a full-length one that had a network of lace across her breasts and two layers of sheer, light blue nylon swirling around her hips down to the floor.

      She couldn’t wait to see the expression on Cruz’s face when she wore it.

      Returning home, she’d cleaned the house and started dinner going before finally going upstairs to change out of her jeans and into her dress for the evening.

      Right now she had both dinner and herself warming, waiting for Cruz to make his appearance. She glanced at the clock. It was a little after seven.

      She’d already called him on the cell phone she’d insisted he carry with him when he was on the range. It had taken eight rings before he’d finally answered. The second he came on, she’d launched her assault.

      “Cruz, I need you to come home.”

      The preoccupied note immediately left his voice, replaced by concern. “Why? What’s wrong? Did something happen to Luke?”

      “No, nothing happened to Luke—”

      “You? Did something happen to you? Is it the baby?”

      “No, honey,” she interjected before his imagination took him to terrible places. “It’s not the baby, or me. Luke and I are fine.”

      “Then why are you calling?”

      She never used the telephone to get in touch with him. They had agreed that it was strictly for emergencies. As far as she was concerned, saving a marriage that was about to break apart came under that heading.

      “Because I do have kind of an emergency here and I need you to come home.”

      Suspicion and concern vied in his voice. “What kind of an emergency?”

      “It’s too hard to explain, Cruz. You’ll understand when you get here. Please just hurry.”

      She’d heard him sigh. “Okay, I’m on my way.”

      That had been over half an hour ago.

      Obviously the man was a lot farther away that she’d thought. Savannah reached for the cell phone again, then stopped. She heard the sound of the Mustang pulling up to the front of the house.

      He was here.

      Butterflies launched another attack as she took a deep breath and waited.

      Within a moment, Cruz was opening the front door. “Okay, so what’s the big emergency?”

      The question faded into the air as Savannah moved out of the shadows to greet him. She was wearing the same drop-dead gorgeous dress she’d had on the night he’d met her at the party at the Double Crown.

      The night he’d lost his heart to her.

       Four

       F eeling a little like a man who had just stepped through some kind of time warp, Cruz closed the door slowly behind him. There was music wafting from somewhere on the first floor. Something soft and romantic, setting the mood.

      Nodding a greeting, he continued staring at the deep green clingy dress. Memories came crowding back, bringing with them feelings he hadn’t entertained in a long time.

      Fear that she was ill melted into anger at being taken away from his work under false pretenses, then finally ebbed into confusion. “What’s this all about?”

      She couldn’t gauge his reaction by his tone. It gave nothing away.

      Savannah forced herself to erase five years of marriage from her conscious behavior. Tonight she was not the frustrated wife and harried mother she’d been for so long she couldn’t easily remember what it was like otherwise. Tonight she was attending a party at her friend Vanessa’s house and had just seen the most beautiful man she’d ever laid eyes on.

      A man who radiated sheer animal magnetism with every move he made, every smoldering look he sent her way. From the first moment she’d seen him, Cruz Perez had made her blood rush through her veins just by being near. She desperately needed to recapture that sensation.

      Needed to recapture, too, that essence within herself that had made him want her so much he was willing to forsake all the others who had come before her. And those who wanted to come after her.

      With slow, measured steps, taken in strappy high heels that were, if she wore them at all, usually shed the second she walked in the front door, Savannah moved toward him. She looked every bit the huntress who had staked out her next prey and was confident of its capture.

      Never mind that she was nervous, that she was afraid he’d laugh at her efforts, that she feared that what they’d had was now behind them. She masked those worries and did her best to look like a determined woman.

      A determined, sexy woman.

      “It’s about getting to know each other,” she told him in a sultry voice.

      Well, this was new. Cruz looked at her a little uncertainly. “You feeling all right, Savannah?”

      “I’m fine.”

      She trailed the back of her hand along his face, then slid her fingertips down his throat, lingering where it dipped in. Savannah became aware of his pulse. It felt as if it had accelerated.

      Good!

      Before she could press it against his chest, Cruz caught her hand and held it for a moment. Savannah was stirring things up and he wanted to be able to think clearly.

      “Then what’s this talk about getting to know each other?” he asked her. “We already know each other. I know everything about you and you damn well know everything about me.”

      He had no secrets from her. She was the other half of his soul, and filled his thoughts. Didn’t she know that?

      “Everything?” Savannah teased, her breath dancing along his cheek.

      She moved her head nearer, bringing her lips achingly close to his. At the last possible second she drew back, just when she judged Cruz was going to kiss her. A little effort, a little pursuit helped to spice things up. She didn’t want this to be too easy, even though part of her wanted to throw herself into his arms and make love right here and now until there wasn’t a breath left