Just Like A Cowboy. Delores Fossen

      Running things was hard, sometimes backbreaking work, but Joe had allowed her to make it into the only ranch in the area that exclusively bred and raised champion-bloodline Santa Gertrudis cattle. People came from miles around to buy the calves and the bulls, and Carlene had plans to expand—to add a small, sustainable farm, too. There was an old cabin in the back that had once belonged to Joe’s dad, and she could convert that into a huge chicken coop.

      Wynn stopped when they reached the back porch, and he looked out at the pasture. “I’ve got plans for this place,” he said.

      That got her attention, and Carlene wondered if she’d said aloud what she had been thinking. She whirled around, frowned. “What?”

      “Plans,” he verified. He went inside and looked around in there, too. Carlene went after him. “Now I can make it what I’ve always wanted it to be.”

      Her heart went to her kneecaps. “What?” she repeated.

      Wynn looked back at her, his forehead bunching up. Then he cursed. “You didn’t know? Joe didn’t tell you?”

      Her heart just kept falling, but Carlene managed to shake her head. “Tell me what?”

      Well, Wynn wasn’t grinning and charming her now. “I thought you knew. I thought that’s why you were being so chilly toward me.”

      “I was being chilly...” Carlene stopped. No, best not to get into their past when it appeared there was plenty in their present they needed to clear up. “What did you think Joe had told me?”

      Wynn stared at her. The stare of a man trying to figure out how to deliver really bad news. “Uncle Joe signed over the place to me.”

      Oh, God. No, this couldn’t be happening.

      “I’m sorry,” Wynn went on. “I honestly thought he’d told you.”

      She managed a headshake. Nothing more. Hard to talk with no breath.

      “Joe did have one condition, though,” he added a heartbeat later. “I own the ranch. At least, I will soon when the papers are all signed. But don’t worry, Joe’s condition was that I keep you on so you won’t be out of a job. And I agreed. So, I guess that means you work for me now.”