Colton Cowboy Standoff. Marie Ferrarella

      This was going to be difficult, Wyatt thought. But he’d meant it when he’d said he needed time to mull this over.

      There was only one option left open to him.

      “No need,” he told her. “You’re welcome to stay here.”

      “Here?” Bailey repeated, stunned. She looked around then back at Wyatt. “With you?”

      He nodded. “If you’re here, it’ll help me make up my mind that much quicker,” he told her. “And with you here, we can use the time to catch up.” His eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at Bailey. “Unless you have something to hide.”

      She stared at him, completely taken aback. “Why would you say something like that?”

      She had to ask? “Because I don’t hear a word from you for six years.” And in the beginning, he’d sought comfort in the bottom of a bottle, convinced that he’d never get over her running out on him like that. Recovery had been slower than he’d ever thought possible. But he’d done it—and he didn’t want to risk a relapse. “Not so much as a phone call or a postcard, and then you show up out of the blue, asking me to father your baby. You have to admit that would make anyone leery.”

      “Maybe if that person didn’t know me,” Bailey pointed out. “You know me.”

      “Do I?” he quipped. “I thought I did. But the woman I knew wouldn’t have just taken off without a word of explanation the way you did. Which means I didn’t really know you at all,” he emphasized.

      Bailey sighed again. Maybe she should extend an olive branch and explain a bit more. To the man she’d once loved.

      “I left because I was losing my identity,” she told him.

      He scowled. “What does that even mean?”

      “It means that you put everything ahead of me. I wanted to become a veterinarian. You told me to hold off on that until after we get the ranch up and running. So I said all right and I held off. I wanted kids. You said okay, but you wanted us to wait until after we finished building the house. So again I said okay. But it wasn’t okay. Not really. I was giving up bits and pieces of me until I didn’t even recognize myself.”

      Wyatt frowned. “So you left.”

      There was no way she could argue the point. “I had to.”

      “And those vows you took? The ones about loving me until death do us part? Those didn’t mean enough to you to make you stay?” he bit out.

      Her answer, if it was truthful, surprised him.

      “Those meant everything to me,” she insisted.

      “But you left anyway.”

      “I left because of them,” she insisted. “Don’t you see?”

      Baffled, Wyatt shook his head. “No, I don’t.”

      “If I’d stayed, I would have wound up resenting you because you were stifling me,” she told him. “Not intentionally, I know that now, but the result was the same. I was losing my sense of who I was, other than just the woman by your side, the one who was helping you build this big ranch house while taking myself apart. Eventually, I knew I was going to wind up hating you for what was happening to me.”

      “So you left.”

      “I had to. I had to sacrifice our marriage in order to save the feelings we had for each other,” Bailey insisted.

      That made absolutely no sense to him. “I don’t understand.”

      She smiled. “I don’t expect you to,” she told Wyatt wistfully. “But just know that I always loved you. And I always will.”

       Chapter 3

      Bailey had managed to catch him off guard again. Wyatt had lost count of how many times that made since he’d opened his door this morning.

       But just know that I always loved you. And I always will.

      Her words echoed in his head. Wyatt frowned. Was his ex-wife just playing him, professing that she felt something for him as a means to an end?

      “Don’t say things you don’t mean,” he retorted, growing angry. “It’s not going to propel me to make up my mind any faster.”

      Bailey tried not to take offense at being dismissed this way. She had hurt him and that cut him a lot of slack in her opinion. But he should have known better.

      “I didn’t say it for that reason and I don’t say things I don’t mean,” Bailey reminded him tersely.

      She rose to her feet and began walking toward the door.

      Wyatt was right behind her. “Where are you going?”

      “I’m going for a drive to clear my head—and to cancel my reservation at the Lodge,” she answered. As quickly as it had threatened to flare up, her temper had receded again. Her voice softened as she told him, “I’ll be back later. You still keep your doors unlocked?”

      “Yes.” Roaring Springs was a relatively small community and trust was a way of life here. For the most part, neighbors all looked out for one another.

      Bailey nodded. She thought so. “Good. Then I’ll let myself in when I get back.” About to open the door and leave, she stopped as something else suddenly occurred to her. Turning back, she looked at Wyatt as she asked, “You’re not with anyone, are you? I mean, I won’t be walking in on your girlfriend or mistress or significant other when I come back to the ranch, will I?” Her eyes washed over his face, searching for an answer.

      “A little late to be asking that, isn’t it?” Wyatt retorted, somewhat amused by her question. In the last six years there’d been no one who’d even remotely stirred his interest—especially the way Bailey had. As far as he was concerned, that part of his life was over.

      The slightest hint of color rose to her cheeks. Wyatt was right. It hadn’t occurred to her until just this moment that he might have moved on. She hadn’t, so she’d just assumed he hadn’t, either. Was he making fun of her? Or was this his subtle way of hinting that he actually was involved with someone else.

      She avoided his eyes as she told him, “I didn’t exactly rehearse any of this beforehand.”

      “That’s obvious,” he commented. And then he took pity on her. Embarrassing Bailey didn’t make him feel any better about what had gone down between them. “And no, there’s no girlfriend or mistress or significant other to worry about.”

      “No one?” Bailey asked, wanting to be absolutely sure he was being honest.

      He caught the note of suspicion in her voice. “Why? Would you feel better if there was?” Wyatt asked, interpreting her question to mean she was worried once she got what she had come for, he might try to make her stay.

      But he had no such intentions. He was neither a masochist nor a slow learner. Being unceremoniously dumped once was more than enough for him. He had no desire to suffer through that again. His heart didn’t need to be cut out of his chest a second time.

      “No,” Bailey quickly denied. “I just wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t accidentally mess up your relationship.”

      His eyes met hers. “Once was enough,” he told her in a cold voice.

      Bailey had no idea how to respond to that. At the time, she hadn’t thought she mattered all that much to him. She quite honestly didn’t even think he’d notice she was gone immediately because he was so fixated on building up the ranch to the exclusion of everything else. Other than representing another pair of hands he could call on, she could have been anyone.

      For