Betting on the Cowboy. Kathleen O'Brien

overlooking the stunning views. Even the interior decorating was perfect, cozy without being cliché.

      Kudos to Cindy Sedgwick. And, of course, to Rowena.

      No wonder Ro looked tired. Having staged so many events, Bree understood that every room in every cottage represented about a hundred decisions to make, a hundred details to oversee. She was deeply impressed and didn’t pass up any opportunity to say so.

      Even cynical Rowena, whose antennae had always been finely tuned to detect empty flattery, was glowing under the effusive compliments by the time they stopped at the last cottage.

      “Enough.” She smiled, holding out her hand. “I believe you’re sincere right now, but one more and I’ll start to think you’re blowing smoke.”

      Bree laughed. “Okay. Nothing but insults from this moment on.”

      She could hardly keep that promise, though. River Moon, built right at the edge of one of the small creek offshoots of Bell River, was a storybook charmer. This cottage, with its round blue door, steeply pitched, sloping roof and climbing yellow roses, would probably be used as the honeymoon suite. Phase Two included marketing the ranch for destination weddings.

      They wandered through the adorable rooms, all the way to the sunny bedroom at the back.

      “Oh, this quilt is—” But somehow Bree bit her tongue, holding back the word fabulous.

      Rowena smiled, shaking her head. “I mean it, Bree. Enough.”

      But the quilt, which had been draped over a Bentwood rocker, was fabulous. Bree ran her hand over the intricate blue-and-yellow pattern of entwined hearts. Each cottage bedroom had its own signature antique quilt, the one theme that ran through all four cottages, but this was the most beautiful of them all.

      If Bree had wanted to say something less fawning, she might have voiced the one doubt that had niggled at her throughout the tour. Were the interior decorations maybe almost too beautiful?

      Too beautiful for their tight budget, anyhow.

      But obviously she didn’t utter a peep about that. She might have reached her limit of compliments, but she hadn’t reached the point at which she could dare to express a criticism.

      Besides, Ro wasn’t exactly a shopaholic. She wouldn’t have spent the money if she hadn’t thought it was important. Bree forced the worry from her mind, and instead strolled the perimeter of the airy room, drinking in the romance of every charming detail.

      “This may be my favorite of all the cottages. That’s not a compliment,” she hastened to add. “Just a fact. Just a personal preference. The colors...the creek. I don’t know, something just appeals to me.”

      “I thought it might,” Rowena said. She lowered herself onto the rocker and leaned her head back against the quilt with a sigh, as if she didn’t get to sit down very often these days. “I used the colors from your old room. Remember?”

      Bree scanned the area with new eyes. She hadn’t noticed it before, but now... Her childhood bedroom had once been painted this exact shade of powder blue, and her canopy bed had been trimmed in bluebell-daffodil patterned linens that she had loved with an innocent, absolute passion. She’d felt like a fairy princess in that room.

      “I’d forgotten,” she said softly. “I can’t believe it, but I’d actually forgotten.”

      Once the floodgates were open, she felt the memory rush through her. She suddenly saw Rowena and their mother, arguing quietly at the Mill End store in downtown Gunnison. Ro had tucked a bolt of flower-sprigged fabric under her arm with the grim tenacity of a quarterback protecting a football.

      Ro couldn’t have been more than nine years old at the time, because Bree had been eight when she got her dream room. But the determination on Rowena’s face was intense and unshakable, far beyond her years.

      “You helped me pick out that print,” Bree said suddenly. “You talked Mom into buying it for me, even though it was much too expensive. And I know you couldn’t have liked it, really. It wasn’t your style at all.”

      Rowena had shut her eyes, but she was smiling, as if her mind’s eye had summoned the pictures, too. “You should have seen the look on your face. Clearly, you were going to curl up and die if you didn’t get it. Whether or not I liked it was irrelevant.”

      Bree remembered that. Somehow, her future had seemed to depend on the sweet, feminine flowers in that bolt of fabric. She had believed with all her heart that if her room looked like that she would always be happy. If her room looked any other way, if her bed was draped in any other material, she would be forever unrealized.