The Texas Lawman's Woman. Cathy Thacker Gillen

all my promises to you—”

      And made love to me, Shelley guessed.

      “—is all I can think about.”

      She couldn’t help it: she’d been fantasizing, too. And although they were both single again now, she was also a mom with parental responsibilities to fulfill—and a myriad of personal financial problems to sort out. She could not afford to be an impetuous romantic anymore. Nor could she take the kind of emotional gamble he proposed. Especially knowing he could shut her out again at any time.

      “Then think about something different, Colt.” Shelley put her hands on his chest and pushed him away. “Because what we planned for that evening is never going to happen. All we can be from this point forward is friends. Good friends, but...” She stopped in midsentence, blinked, sure her eyes were playing tricks on her.

      But there he was at the other end of the alley. The exact person she’d been trying to find.

      * * *

      “TULLY.”

      Shelley’s gasp rang in the alley as her ex-husband, the man Colt had loathed from the first moment he’d set eyes on him, strode toward them.

      “I heard you were looking for me,” Tully Laffer said.

      Several inches shorter than Colt, clad in plaid shorts, coordinating polo shirt and deck shoes, expensive sunglasses shading his eyes, he looked more ready for a party on his parents’ yacht than an evening in a small West Texas town.

      Colt knew the polite thing to do would be to excuse himself and let the two exes talk in private. However, he wasn’t feeling particularly well mannered. He never did when Tully was around.

      Fortunately, Colt noted, Shelley was focused totally on her ex—and not his dubious attitude. She stormed toward Tully, hands knotted at her sides. “Did you take out a line of credit against my parents’ house?”

      Tully took off his sunglasses and hooked them in the front of his shirt. “I needed collateral to get the loan to start my adventure-tours business.”

      Shelley looked as though she wanted to punch him. “Then your business better pay me back. Pronto.”

      Tully shoved a hand through his thinning, sun-streaked hair. “I’d like to. Really, I would, Shel.”

      “But?” Shelley continued to stare down her ex.

      Colt couldn’t say he blamed her. It appeared her ex-husband was just as much an irresponsible party boy now as he had been when she had met him.

      Tully gestured impotently. “I never quite got the biz off the ground. I mean, I went to a lot of the places I was going to offer packages on, like Belize, Aruba and Tibet, but it’s a lot more work getting things arranged than I bargained on.”

      Shelley stepped backward, her body nudging Colt’s in the process. “You knew what the property settlement was at the time of our divorce, that you had no claim to that house I inherited.”

      “Technically, yeah. But when I went to apply for the loan and the property turned up in my name, too, they said I could use it.”

      “So you decided to commit fraud?” Colt asked, feeling bereft when Shelley moved slightly to the left so she was no longer touching him.