Reuniting with the Rancher. Rachel Lee

that she didn’t take that stupid thought of his seriously. Bring those kids here? He couldn’t imagine the scope of the undertaking, but even less could he imagine life with Holly nearby. This county wasn’t big enough for both of them.

      He shoved out of his bed impatiently, aware that if he didn’t watch it he was going to make love to Holly in his mind. Maybe that had been part of the problem in his marriage with Lisa. Maybe at some unconscious level he had considered Lisa second best.

      He didn’t know, but if so, he ought to despise himself. Staring out the window at a night as dark as pitch, he wrestled his internal demons.

      Ten years later, even after the awful way she had treated him, he still wanted her as much as the very first time. Did that make him sick? He didn’t know that, either.

      He just knew that seeing her had fueled a fire that had never quite gone out. Now what the hell was he going to do about it?

      He’d thought he’d finally learned to roll with life, the good and the bad, but now he wondered. That woman out there had the ability to turn him into a kid again. He was randier than a goat, and it didn’t please him.

      Sometimes, on rare, restless nights, he’d go saddle up Sy and take a ride. The gelding seemed to enjoy those nighttime rambles. He let Sy choose the course and the pace, and sometimes that gelding would open up his throttle wide and gallop hell-for-leather.

      But it was a moonless, dark night, not safe for riding, and besides, he had a feeling that if he mounted up, he’d end up at Martha’s place like a lovesick dog.

      So he stood there aching, remembering, knowing it had been a dream that could never happen again. He needed to get a grip.

      But the grip kept slipping away, lost in dizzying sensual memories.

      * * *

      A few miles away, Holly wasn’t doing much better. She had fallen asleep only to wake twisted in her sheets and drenched in perspiration. She had dreamed of Cliff, which she hadn’t done in years, but it had gotten all twisted up in her dream with the guys who had attacked her last year.

      How could she want something that still frightened her? That overlayering of the attack ought to be a warning. She’d avoided dating since then, because she couldn’t quite erase the memory of stinking breath and pawing, filthy hands. Any time a guy got too close, she headed for the door.

      But she’d done the same to Cliff before then, and for the first time she wondered who she really was and what might be going on inside her.

      All she knew was that Cliff still drew her as he had from the first. At least the years had made her considerably less self-centered. She’d hurt the man badly, and she wasn’t going to risk doing it again, whether she craved him or not.

      She just wished she knew what it was about him. Nobody had ever gotten to her the way he had.

      She took the teddy bear from the chair and pulled it over to the window. Even with the curtains open, she couldn’t see much, but she didn’t care. She lifted the sash just a bit, letting some chilly air into the room, hoping it would cool her down. Then she hugged the bear and sat, watching the impenetrable night.

      Thinking about Cliff was the ultimate waste of time, she told herself. She’d hurt him badly, and while he’d been civil and even pleasant today, that had been common courtesy. It had been obvious to her at their first meeting that he ranked her somewhere near rat poison on his list of things he liked. Nor could she blame him. She had burned that bridge herself.

      She tried instead to think about the little kernels of an idea he had planted today, but her mind remained stubborn. Even as her body dried off and began to feel chilled, Cliff persisted in dominating her thoughts.

      A decade had passed and she still wanted him. That was surely crazy.

      Then she saw movement outside. She leaned toward the window and strained her eyes. Horse and rider? What the— Jumping up, she pulled off her damp nightgown, pulled on a dry and much more modest one, then headed downstairs.

      She was sure of one thing: only one person would be riding up to this house in the middle of the night.

      She reached the front door just as he came riding around the corner of the house. He wasn’t even looking in her direction, just kind of ambling along. She grabbed a jacket off the coat tree, pulled it on and stepped out.

      “What are you doing?” she asked.

      He drew rein and turned his mount in her direction. “Curing insomnia,” he said. “We shouldn’t have disturbed you.”

      “You didn’t. I was awake.”

      “Sorry I didn’t bring a horse for you.”

      Oh, that was a mistake, she thought as memory slammed her again. They’d gone riding together so many times during that summer, laughing and carefree until passion would rise again. They’d made love on a bed of pine needles, once on a flat rock in the middle of a tumbling mountain stream, another time...

      Clenching her hands, she forced memory back into its cage. “Does it help the insomnia? Riding?” It seemed like a safe question.

      “I don’t think anything’s going to help tonight,” he said bluntly.

      Even though she could barely see him, she could feel his eyes boring into her. The quiet night settled between them, disturbed only by the jingle of the horse’s bridle as it tossed its head a little.

      “Well,” he said, “we’ll just move on.”

      She knew what she should have done, but before she could act sensibly, words popped out of her mouth. “Want some coffee? I know it won’t help you sleep...”

      “It’s almost dawn. No point in sleeping now.” For a few seconds it seemed he was going to continue his ride, but then he swung down from the saddle. “Coffee would be great.”

      She turned quickly and headed back inside, partly to avoid getting too close to him, and partly to warm up. Late spring? The nights still got chilly.

      She wished she’d grabbed a robe, but the long flannel nightgown she had put on was probably almost as concealing. Which led her to another question as she made the coffee. Why had she been in such a rush to get down here when she had been certain it was Cliff riding by?

      She shook her head at her own behavior. Maybe this house just felt too empty with Martha, but it was pretty sad that she was reaching out to Cliff.

      So there she was, missing Martha even more because she ought to be here, hundreds of miles from home, troubled by a weird nightmare that had somehow combined Cliff with the attack on her when the two were totally unrelated. She wondered if she was losing it.

      Or maybe grief had just scrambled her thinking. It was certainly possible.

      She heard Cliff come through the house to the kitchen, and it seemed his steps were slow. Evidently he wasn’t really looking forward to having coffee with her. Well, why should he? But he could have just refused.

      “Have a seat,” she said. She remained where she was, staring at a coffeemaker that seemed to be taking forever and a window that stared back at her blackly, showing her more of the kitchen behind her than the world outside.

      It was a big country kitchen. Martha had once talked about the days when the family was big, when they had hired help and everyone would gather here for the main meal of the day. At home she had an efficiency, with barely enough room for a narrow stove, small sink and tiny refrigerator. If she wanted to cook, she had to do the prep on her dining table in the next tiny room.

      Still, the house was awfully big for one person, but she couldn’t sell it for ten years. She definitely needed to find a good way to put it to use.

      Wandering thoughts again, but when the coffeemaker finished, so did the wandering.

      “You still like it black?” she asked.

      “Yes. Thanks.”

      So