It’s a quickie marriage to a rich cowboy from USA TODAY bestselling author Kathie DeNosky!

Blake Hartwell is a sexy-as-sin rodeo champion with money to burn and a way with the ladies, but to Karly Ewing he’s her soon-to-be ex! Their whirlwind affair ended with Vegas “I dos”—but saying yes was a mistake. So Karly heads to his ranch, divorce papers in hand, only to be stranded with the man she can’t resist! Will temptation lead them to happily-ever-after? Or will Blake’s secrets tear them apart for good?

The room was so cozy and inviting, she felt as if she belonged there, which was absolutely ridiculous.

Karly turned to go back into the kitchen to wait for Blake, and walked right into his broad chest. Stumbling backward, she would have fallen if not for his big hands encircling her upper arms to steady her.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

Her voice failed her as she gazed up into his sexy brown eyes, and for a split second, she thought she caught a glimpse of the warm, compassionate man she’d thought she was in love with. But just as quickly as it appeared, the glimmer was gone, replaced by a closed-off stare.

“You’d better watch your step,” he said, his deep baritone sending a shiver coursing through her. “One of these days those ridiculous shoes are going to cause you to fall and break an ankle.”

Before she could find her voice and tell him that she didn’t need his input on what she should or shouldn’t wear, he released her and motioned toward a door across the room.

“Let’s go into the office for this talk you seem to think is so important.”

She took a deep breath and followed him. Now she had to find a way to tell him she was still his wife.

Dear Reader,

A few years ago, I introduced you to Blake Hartwell, the best friend of the hero in my book In the Rancher’s Arms. So many of you wrote to tell me how much you loved Blake and wanted to read his story that, this month, I’m happy to be bringing you his book.

When Blake ran into Karly Ewing in a Las Vegas hotel lobby, he bought her a drink to apologize for his carelessness. By the end of the day, they were lovers. By the end of the week, they were married. And by the end of the next week, they were filing for divorce.

In The Rancher’s One-Week Wife we take a look at what happens when a couple who think they’re divorced find out they’re not only still married, but that they still can’t seem to keep their hands off each other. Unfortunately, they both have secrets that could very well make finding their happily-ever-after impossible.

Sometimes rocky, sometimes filled with unexpected detours, the road to love is never easy. But it’s always worth the journey.

All the best,

Kathie DeNosky

The Rancher’s One-Week Wife

Kathie DeNosky

www.millsandboon.co.uk

KATHIE DENOSKY lives in her native Southern Illinois on the land her family settled in 1839. Her books have appeared on the USA TODAY bestseller list and received numerous awards, including two National Readers’ Choice Awards. Readers may contact Kathie by emailing Kathie@kathiedenosky.com. They can also visit her website, www.kathiedenosky.com, or find her on Facebook at Facebook.com/Kathie-DeNosky-Author/278166445536145.

This book is dedicated to my editor, Stacy Boyd. Thank you for being my cheerleader and for waving those pom-poms when I need them the most.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

One

Blake Hartwell shook his head in disgust when he heard the low-slung sports car bottom out in first one, then another of the many potholes pitting the dirt lane leading up to the foreman’s cottage. As he brushed the sorrel gelding he’d tied to the side of the corral, he decided right then and there that whoever was behind the steering wheel of that little red toy couldn’t be from the area. Folks in rural Wyoming had better sense than to drive a vehicle that sat that low on unpaved mountain roads. It was a surefire way to knock a hole in the oil pan or tear up the exhaust system on a car.

“Whoever he is, he’d better be prepared to hitch a ride on the back of an antelope if he breaks down because I’m not driving his fool hide back to town,” Blake muttered as he glanced at the afternoon sun sinking toward the taller peaks to the west.

The car stopped at the side of the foreman’s cottage next to Blake’s truck. When the driver’s door opened, a leggy blonde stepped out, causing his heart to stall and the breath to lodge in his lungs.

Blake clenched the grooming brush he’d been using on Boomer so tightly he wouldn’t have been surprised if he left his fingerprints in the wood. He swallowed hard as he watched her walk toward the corral as fast as her spiked heels would allow on the uneven ground.

Slender and sleek in her formfitting black dress, her delicate body moved much like a jungle panther on the prowl. Blake’s lower body tightened and he wasn’t sure if it was in response to the sight of her now, or the memory of how those long legs felt wrapped around him when they made love.

“Aw, hell,” he cursed under his breath. “What does she want?”

Boomer stamped one of his front hooves, then looked over his shoulder as if to ask if Blake knew her.

Reminding himself to exhale, Blake released the breath he’d been holding and went back to brushing the gelding’s rust-colored hide. He knew her all right. Back in December, he’d met Karly Ewing in Las Vegas. She’d been on vacation from her job—whatever that was—and he’d been in town to compete in the national bull-riding finals. He’d accidently bumped into her in the lobby at Caesar’s Palace and barely managed to catch her before she fell. As a way of apologizing for his carelessness, he’d convinced her to let him buy her a drink. They’d ended up talking for hours and the chemistry between them had been explosive. By the end of the day they’d been lovers. By the end of the week they’d been husband and wife. And one week after that, they’d been filing for a divorce.

When she stopped a few feet from the horse, she looked a little uncertain, as if she wasn’t sure what kind of reception she’d get from him. “H-hello, Blake.”

Her voice flowed over him like a fine piece of silk and reminded him of the way it had sounded when she’d said his name as he pleasured her. Blake gritted his teeth against the heat building in his lower belly and continued to brush Boomer.

He wasn’t about to let her get to him. Not again. It had taken months after that fateful phone call on New Year’s Eve, when she told him she wanted a divorce, for him to get a decent night’s sleep. If possible, he’d just as soon avoid repeating that.

She’d made the choice to end things between them and although he hadn’t agreed with her, he had accepted it. The way he saw it, there wasn’t anything they hadn’t already covered and there was no sense in rehashing it now.

“What brings you to the Wolf Creek Ranch, Karly?” Without waiting for an answer, he added, “Eight months ago you weren’t even willing to come here to see it. In fact, you said you weren’t the least bit interested in learning anything about the backside of no-man’s-land.”

As long as he lived, he would never forget the sting of her rejection, or her scorn for the land he loved. The ranch had been in his family for the past hundred and fifty years and he’d spent the majority of his adult life trying to get it back from his gold-digging stepmother after his father’s death. He’d finally accomplished that goal almost two years ago and once he’d made Karly his wife, he’d been looking forward to showing her the place that he was proud to call home. But she hadn’t cared enough about him or it to even see the place before she refused to live there with him.

Meeting her startled gaze head-on, he did his best to ignore the effect she had on him whenever he looked into her incredible blue eyes. “Why the sudden interest in a place you had no desire to learn anything about?”

Color rose on her cheeks and it seemed as if she might be slightly embarrassed. “I, um, I’m sorry if I left you with the wrong impression, Blake. It’s not that I didn’t think the ranch would be beautiful...”

When her voice trailed off as she looked around, Blake stopped grooming the gelding and rested his forearms on the gentle animal’s broad back to give her an expectant look. “Then what was it?”

As he stared at her, awaiting an answer, a slight breeze fluttered her long, honey-colored hair and reminded him how the silky strands had felt when he’d threaded his fingers through them as he kissed her. His body came to full arousal and he was damn glad the horse stood between them. At least she wouldn’t be able to see the evidence of how he still burned for her.

Turning back to face him, her eyes couldn’t quite meet his. “I’ve always lived in the city and I was...” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“What are you doing here, Karly?” Seeing her again was heaven and hell rolled into one neat little bundle, and the sooner she laid her cards on the table and went back to Seattle, the sooner he could get back to the business of trying to forget her.

When she took a deep breath, he did his best to ignore the rise and fall of her perfect breasts. “We need to talk, Blake.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know what you think we need to discuss now. We pretty much covered everything that needed to be said eight months ago. I wanted you to give us a chance to make our marriage work. You didn’t want that. End of story.”

“Please, Blake.” She took a step back when Boomer blew out a gentle breath through his nose and turned his head to gaze at her. Looking a little apprehensive, she continued. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important. Could we please go somewhere we can sit down and talk? I promise I won’t take up too much of your time.”

Blake sighed heavily. It was clear she wasn’t going anywhere until she’d said her piece. And truth to tell, he did need to talk to her. He hadn’t yet received a copy of their divorce papers and he needed them for his records.

“The door’s open,” he finally said, motioning toward the foreman’s cottage. “Make yourself at home. I’ll be in as soon as I put Boomer in his stall for the night.”

She opened her mouth as if she intended to say something more, then with a short nod she turned on her black spiked heels and slowly walked toward the back porch. Watching the gentle sway of her slender hips as she navigated the hard-packed, uneven ground in those ridiculous shoes, Blake shifted his weight from one foot to the other in an effort to relieve the pressure in his now too-tight jeans. He’d spent the past eight months trying to forget how her soft curves had felt beneath his hands and how her kisses were the sweetest this side of heaven. Seeing her here—where he’d wanted her—was bringing back all the memories he thought he’d left behind.

Shaking his head, he untied the gelding’s lead rope from the top fence rail. He had no idea what she thought they needed to discuss, but if it had brought her from Seattle all the way to his remote ranch in Wyoming, it had to be pretty damn important.

Leading Boomer into the barn, he decided to get this meeting over with as soon as possible. Then, after he watched Karly drive off his land and away from him for good, he had every intention of getting his brother, Sean, to come over from his ranch on the other side of the mountain and go with him to the Silver Dollar Bar in the tiny community of Antelope Junction. Sean could be the designated driver, while Blake finally finished the job of forgetting he’d ever met the petite blonde who’d turned his world upside down from the moment he’d laid eyes on her.

* * *

Karly opened the back door to Blake’s home and walked into the kitchen on shaky legs. It had taken every ounce of courage she possessed to face him again, and although she had thought she’d put their brief relationship in perspective and moved on, his effect on her had been no less devastating today than it had been eight months ago, when she’d agreed to become his wife.

Blake was every bit as handsome, every bit as masculine and even sexier than she’d remembered. With wide shoulders, narrow hips and long muscular legs, he had a physique women drooled over and men spent endless hours in a gym trying to attain. But the steely muscles covering his tall frame had been honed from years of ranch work and competing in rodeos, not from lifting weights or working out on fitness machines. He was the real deal—the epitome of every woman’s cowboy fantasy, and then some.

That was something she hadn’t even realized she possessed until they ran into each other in Las Vegas. But when he caught her to him to keep her from falling, all it had taken was one look at the cowboy holding her to his wide chest and she’d come close to melting into a puddle at his big-booted feet.

A delicious little shiver slid up her spine when she remembered how it had felt to be held in his strong arms, to taste the passion of his masterful kiss and experience the power of his desire as he made love to her. Her breathing grew shallow and her heart sped up. She forced herself to ignore it.

The hardest thing she’d ever done had been making the call to tell Blake she thought it would be in both of their best interest to call off their brief marriage. But when she had returned home, she’d thought about how little they knew about each other and she couldn’t think of a single thing they had in common besides not being able to keep their hands off of each other. Her breath caught and she had to swallow hard against the sudden wave of emotion threatening to overtake her.

“Get a grip,” she admonished herself. “Nothing has changed. He lives here and you live in Seattle. It would have never worked.”

To distract herself, she glanced around Blake’s neatly kept home. Even though the appliances were ultramodern, the rest of the kitchen appeared to be as rugged and masculine as the man who lived there.

A wooden butcher-block island sat in the middle of the kitchen with a variety of copper bottom skillets, pots and pans hanging above it from a wrought-iron rack. The cabinets were a warm oak with hammered black hinges and door pulls; the countertop was polished blue marble. A wagon wheel suspended from the ceiling with old-fashioned-looking chimney lamps served as a chandelier over the round oak dining table, while the windows on the wall behind the dining area framed a panoramic view of the Laramie Mountains, which surrounded the ranch.

“Beautiful,” she murmured as she gazed at the picture-perfect landscape. It was as rugged and fascinating as the man she was here to see.

Wandering into the living room, she wasn’t at all surprised to see a stone fireplace with a rough-hewn mantel surrounded by a grouping of heavy leather furniture and rustic wooden end tables. The room was so cozy and inviting, she felt as if she belonged there, which was absolutely ridiculous. She belonged in Seattle, in her own apartment with its modern decor and view of the city. And try as she might, she couldn’t imagine how it would have been living here with Blake. If that wasn’t enough to convince her that she’d made the right decision, she didn’t know what was.

But as she looked around at the colorful Native American throws on the back of the large leather sofa, and the pieces of vintage tack and Western accents hanging on the walls, she had to admit that Blake’s home had a warm, friendly feel to it that her place had never possessed. An uncharacteristic loneliness suddenly invaded every part of her. She did her best to tamp it down.

She loved her life in Seattle. She had a great job as buyer for a large import/export dealer and although she didn’t have much of a social life, she did occasionally go out with some of her coworkers for happy hour after work. But as she thought about how long it had been since that had happened, she took a deep breath. She really couldn’t say she had a lot in common with any of them anymore. They were all either married or in committed relationships and were more interested in going home to their significant others than hanging out to talk shop.

It was odd she hadn’t noticed that before she met Blake. And she had to admit that when she did realize it, she might have had second thoughts about her decision to end things with him. In the end, she hadn’t let that sway her and resigned herself to being the only one in her office with no one to go home to.

But the more she thought about it, the more her loneliness increased. Shaking her head to dislodge the unsettling feeling, Karly turned to go back into the kitchen to wait for Blake and walked right into his broad chest. Stumbling backward, she would have fallen if not for his big hands encircling her upper arms to steady her.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

Her voice failed her as she gazed up into his sexy brown eyes. For a split second, she thought she caught a glimpse of the warm, compassionate man she’d thought she was in love with. But just as quickly as it appeared the glimmer was gone, replaced by a closed-off stare.

“You’d better watch your step,” he said, his deep baritone sending a shiver coursing through her. “One of these days those ridiculous shoes are going to cause you to fall and break an ankle.” Before she could find her voice and tell him that she didn’t need his input on what she should or shouldn’t wear, he released her and motioned toward a door across the room. “Let’s go into the office for this talk you seem to think is so important.”

Blake stepped back for her to precede him into a study off the living room, and as she seated herself in the burgundy leather armchair in front of his desk, Karly forced herself to stay calm. The heat from his calloused palms through the fabric of her dress when he caught her had set her pulse racing and made breathing all but impossible.

She tried to calm herself as she stared at the outdoor scene intricately carved into the oak desk’s front panel. She’d just as soon face off with the bear fishing in the stream as she would having to deliver the news she’d traveled over a thousand miles to give Blake.

“So what brings you all the way to Wyoming, Karly?” He removed his hat and hung it on a peg by the door. “I’m betting you didn’t make this trip by choice.”

He wasn’t going to make their meeting easy and she really hadn’t expected him to. When they’d decided to dissolve their marriage eight months ago, they had both said things out of hurt and frustration that she was sure they both regretted.

“Please, Blake. Can’t we at least—”

“What do you expect from me, Karly?” he interrupted, sinking into the chair behind his desk. “I haven’t seen or heard from you since just before the first of the year. After we spent Christmas in Las Vegas, I came home expecting my wife to be joining me here for New Year’s Eve. Instead, I get a call telling me you’d changed your mind. If I wanted to stay married, I’d have to give up my life on the Wolf Creek Ranch, quit riding bulls and move to Seattle because you decided you couldn’t live out in the middle of nowhere.”

“That isn’t exactly what I told you,” she said, defending herself.

“Close enough,” he stated flatly.

“You were just as adamant that you couldn’t live in the city,” she reminded him, feeling a little guilty. He hadn’t been as insulting in his assessment of Seattle as she’d been about where the ranch was located. But dredging up what he said and what she said wasn’t getting to the point of her visit. When they continued to glare at each other for what seemed an eternity, she sighed and shook her head. “I didn’t come here to argue with you, Blake.”

“Why are you here? I thought we settled things when I signed the papers without contesting the divorce.” He frowned. “By the way, I’d like to get a copy of the final decree. You said your lawyer was supposed to mail that to me, but like everything else you promised, it didn’t happen.”

Karly stared down at her tightly clasped hands. She supposed he was right. She had made several promises that she hadn’t been able to keep. She’d meant to keep them at the time. But once she went back home to pack her things and close her apartment, her sanity returned and the fear of failure had her second-guessing everything that had happened in Las Vegas.

“When I took the documents back to Mr. Campanella after you signed them, he suggested that I file for the divorce myself in Lincoln County on the eastern side of the state,” she finally said. “Which I did.”

Blake frowned. “Why?”

“The dockets in Seattle are filled with other domestic matters and it can take up to a year or more just to get a court date,” she explained. “All I had to do was mail the signed documents to the courthouse in Lincoln County and after the ninety-day cooling-off period the divorce would be final.”

“Mail them?” His frown darkened. “I thought a lawyer and at least one of the petitioners had to go before a judge for a divorce. At least that’s how I think it is here. Is it different in Washington State?”

Rubbing her temples, Karly tried to concentrate. This was what she’d come here to tell him. It was also where everything got extremely complicated. “If the petition had been filed in Seattle, Mr. Campanella would have been present. But Lincoln is one of only two counties where residents of Washington State file uncontested divorces by mailing the paperwork to the county clerk. Neither petitioner has to be present, nor do they have to have legal representation.” When she noticed his skeptical expression, the tension headache she’d been fighting began to pound unmercifully. “It’s really quite simple. The judge looks over the papers, signs a final judgment and sends it back.”

“That sounds out of character, for a lawyer to pass up a case like this,” Blake said, frowning. “Most of the ones I know would jump at the chance to make some easy money.”

“Mr. Campanella is the grandfather of one of my coworkers,” she explained. Karly really appreciated the woman’s offer of help. When she’d come back from Vegas and realized the enormity of what she’d done, she’d been in a panic to fix her mistake. “Jo Ellen asked him to guide me through it all and he agreed. He suggested that I use the courts in Lincoln County since ours was a simple, uncontested divorce. He said it would save time and cost a lot less than going through the court system in Seattle. I agreed, and followed his instructions.”

Blake nodded. “I guess that makes sense if you’re in a hurry to rid yourself of an unwanted husband.”

His words were bitter and cut like a knife. She had to swallow around the lump forming in her throat. He had no idea how hard it had been to make the decision not to follow her heart and move to the middle of nowhere with him. She had witnessed the unhappiness and resentment created when her mother followed her heart and it had ultimately ended her parents’ marriage. Karly had reasoned that it was better to end things before it came to such hard feelings between herself and Blake. But there was no sense in dwelling on the mistakes and heartaches of the past now.

“I never said I was in a hurry to get rid of you.”

He stared at her for a moment before he shrugged. “That’s debatable, but it’s not the issue. I need a notarized copy of the final decree.”

Karly nibbled on her lower lip as she nervously met Blake’s fathomless brown eyes. The time had come to lay out the reason for her visit and apologize for making such a mess of everything. “Actually, I don’t even have a copy of it myself.”

“Didn’t they send you one?” he asked, his frown turning to a scowl.

“No, but I’m sure they will,” she said evasively. She needed to explain what happened before she told him the reason she’d traveled all the way to Wyoming. “The import company I work for sent me to their offices in Hong Kong for several months shortly before the ninety-day cooling-off period was up and I wasn’t able to check on it from overseas.” Her head pounded as she thought about how badly she’d handled something as important to both herself and Blake as their divorce. But she’d been sad and unsure as to why she’d felt so badly about a logical, sensible decision that should have brought only relief. “When I got back last week, I called to inquire about our copies of the final decree.”

He must have been able to sense that there was more to the story because Blake’s scowl darkened. “What did they say?”

Shaking her head, Karly took a deep fortifying breath in order to tell him the rest of what had happened. “I called the Lincoln County courthouse to see if I could get a copy of the final decree...”

When she let her voice trail off as she searched for the right words, he prompted, “Yeah, I got that. You called about the papers. And?”

Karly briefly closed her eyes as she tried to gather her courage for what needed to be said. Opening them to meet his suspicious gaze, she did her best to keep her voice steady. “Apparently the papers were lost in the mail because the court clerk has no record of us ever filing for a divorce.” She had to take a deep breath before she could finish. “It appears that we’re still husband and wife, Blake.”

“We’re still married,” he repeated as if he had a hard time grasping what she’d said.

“Yes.” She hurried on as she reached into her purse to take out a new set of divorce papers. Her hand trembled slightly as she placed the envelope on the desk in front of him. “I’m really sorry for the inconvenience. Once you sign these, I’m going to fly to Spokane and drive over to the Lincoln County courthouse to file them with the clerk myself.”

“So all this time, I’ve been thinking I’m a free man and I wasn’t,” he said, sitting back in the desk chair.

“Have you met someone?” she asked before she could stop herself.

He raised one dark eyebrow as he stared at her. “Would it matter if I had, Karly?”

Yes! “No,” she lied. Thinking quickly, she added, “I was, um, afraid this snag might have derailed plans you might have made with someone else.”

He continued to stare at her for a few moments before he smiled, shook his head and opened the envelope to remove the document. Reaching for an ink pen, he signed where she had flagged the papers with colored sticky notes.

“Well, you’re stuck with me for at least another ninety days,” he said, sliding the pages back into the envelope and pushing it across the desk’s shiny surface toward her.

Karly winced at his acidic tone. She knew he was disillusioned and extremely unhappy with the situation. “I’m really...sorry, Blake. I never meant for any of this to happen.” At least, not the mishandling of their divorce.

“Yeah, well, it did,” he said, sounding resigned. “When you file these at the courthouse, make sure they send me copies of everything.”

“Of course,” she said, nodding as she slid the envelope back into her shoulder bag. She hesitated a moment as she tried to think of some way to say goodbye. Deciding there wasn’t anything she could say that wouldn’t make matters worse, she rose to her feet. “I’ll be in touch if there’s anything else we need to do.”

“Did you drive all the way from Seattle or is that little toy in the driveway a rental?” he asked, standing up.

“I rented it when I flew into the Cheyenne Regional Airport,” she answered, wondering why he wanted to know.

“I’ll check under the car before you leave to make sure you didn’t do some kind of damage to the undercarriage,” he said, taking his wide-brimmed hat from the hook as they left the room. “You hit quite a few potholes on your way up the lane. Drive slower on the way back. You’ll be less likely to damage the car.”

“Who’s responsible for taking care of the roads around here?” she asked. “They’re in terrible condition.”

“The county is responsible for the roads leading up to the ranch property lines, but ranchers have to keep the roads on their land plowed in the winter and graded in the summer,” he explained. “We took care of grading the road after the snow melted off in the spring. But once the rainy season hit it washed out a lot of places. We were waiting until it dried up to work on the road again, when we have time.”

“I think it’s safe to say it’s dry enough,” she said as they walked out of the house. She didn’t know much about caring for a ranch or tending to roads, but she did notice the red sports car was coated with a thick layer of Wyoming dust.

His deep laughter sent heat racing through her veins and reminded her of the carefree man she’d met eight months ago. The man he’d been before she’d told him she couldn’t be his wife after all. “It won’t be an issue much longer,” he stated. “The new owner is having it asphalted all the way to the county road.”

“Why didn’t the previous owner do that?” she asked, walking across the yard with him to the rental car.

“After her husband died, she wasn’t interested in anything but trying to sell the ranch to a land developer. When she tried for a couple of years and failed to find a buyer, she finally sold it to one of her husband’s sons from a previous marriage,” he answered, sounding a little angry as he kneeled down to peer under the car.

She briefly wondered why he would be upset by a property dispute between the owner’s heirs, but she abandoned her speculation when her cell phone chirped. Taking it out of her shoulder bag, Karly looked to see who was texting her. Her heart sank as she read the message. It was an alert from the airline, informing her that due to a contract-workers strike at the Denver airport, all flights had been canceled until further notice. Since the only commercial airline going in or out of the Cheyenne airfield was from Denver, she wasn’t going anywhere until the labor dispute was settled.

“Lovely,” she muttered sarcastically. Now what was she supposed to do?

She’d packed light because she hadn’t expected to be away from home for more than a couple of nights. And she certainly hadn’t planned on having to find a local place to stay indefinitely while the strike was settled.

“Looks like everything is intact,” Blake said, unaware of her dilemma. He straightened to his full height as he dusted off his hands. “When does your flight leave?”

“It’s not leaving,” she said disgustedly as she opened the browser on her phone to see what lodging was available in the nearest town. “All flights in and out of Denver have been canceled due to an airport workers’ strike.”

He remained silent for several long moments and when she looked up, he was staring at her. “Looks like you’ll be spending some time on the Wolf Creek Ranch after all,” he said, folding his arms across his wide chest.

“No, I’ll get a room in town,” she said determinedly. It had been hard enough to see him again, to sit across the desk from him. She couldn’t imagine spending the night in the same house with him, knowing he was so close and not being able to touch him or have him hold her.

He pointed toward the mountains to the west. “Not tonight you won’t. I can’t, in good conscience, let you drive on unfamiliar mountain roads in the dark. Hell, it would be a miracle if you didn’t get lost or end up hung in the top of a tree after missing a curve and going over the side of the mountain.”

“You can’t allow me to drive back in the dark?” she demanded indignantly. “I have news for you, buster. If I choose to go, you aren’t going to stop me.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head as if trying to gather his patience. When he opened them, he looked directly at her. “I realize we won’t be married for much longer, but right now, I’m still your husband,” he finally said. “I take my vows seriously. It’s my job to keep you safe until a judge says otherwise. I’d feel a lot better if you would at least wait to make the drive until tomorrow morning. It’s safer.”

Karly was surprised by his grudging admission that he thought he should protect her. There hadn’t been anyone who’d cared about her safety since her mother passed away several years ago. But as nice as it was to have someone worry about her well-being again, she needed to remember that Blake was only doing it because he felt it was his obligation. He’d signed the divorce papers. He must be as ready to undo their mistake as she was.

Sighing heavily, she tried to decide what to do. Everything about this trip had gone awry. Her flight from Denver to Cheyenne had been delayed for over two hours due to a dangerous storm front moving through, the drive to the ranch had taken three times as long as she had anticipated due to the car the rental agency had provided and her meeting with Blake hadn’t gone as quickly as she’d thought it would. The way her luck had been running, it was very likely that she’d end up in one of the disastrous scenarios he mentioned.

“Eagle Fork is only twenty miles away,” she said, glancing at the sun rapidly sinking behind the mountains to the west.

“It takes a little over an hour in the daylight to drive down the mountain to get there. How long do you think it would take you to get back at night?” Blake pointed toward the road. “Do you really want to drive on unfamiliar, rough mountain roads in the dark? At least stay tonight.”

“If I take it slow, I shouldn’t have a problem,” she hedged. Sleeping in the same house with Blake—even if it was in different rooms—wasn’t a good idea. He was six feet two inches of male temptation that had proved almost impossible for her to resist in the past. It had taken going all the way back to Seattle for her to realize the effect he’d had on her good sense. What crazy decisions would she make if she stayed here with him?

“And what happens if you have a deer or elk run across the road in front of you?” he persisted, oblivious to her inner battle. “I’ve got news for you, sweetheart. If you hit one of those in that little toy car, you’re going to lose.”

Karly stared at him as she weighed her options. Driving up through the mountains during the day with all the switchbacks and ninety-degree curves had been a challenge. And of course, there had been the last several miles to the ranch, which had become a dirt-and-gravel road pitted with more holes than a piece of Swiss cheese. But at night?

She hated to admit it, but her choices were extremely limited. Since she didn’t know another soul in Wyoming, she either had to risk going down the mountain in the dark to find a motel room in Eagle Fork, or stay with Blake.

As she watched the evening shadows begin to overtake the high mountain valley, she decided she had run out of time. There simply wasn’t enough daylight left to make it back to town before it got completely dark.

“I suppose I could spend the night here and then drive back down to Eagle Fork tomorrow to get a room for however long it takes the strike to be resolved,” she said, talking more to herself than to Blake.

“Then it’s settled,” he said, walking to the back of the car. “I’ll carry your luggage inside.”

“I wasn’t expecting to spend more than two nights away from home and only have an overnight case,” she said, using the keyless remote to open the trunk as she walked over to take the small bag from him. “I can bring it inside.”

He shook his head as he lifted it from the trunk. “Grandma Jean would have my hide if she got wind of me letting you carry your luggage yourself.”

“Does she live close by?” Karly had never known what it was like to be close to a grandparent. Three of hers had passed away before she was born and her paternal grandmother had lived so far away, she’d only seen her a handful of times.

“She lives down in Eagle Fork,” he said as he placed his hand at the small of her back to guide her into the house. “There were several of us who lived with her during the winter when we were still in school.”

“Because of all the snow?” she mused as they climbed the stairs to the second floor. If the roads were so difficult to navigate in the summer, she couldn’t imagine trying to get around in a heavy snowfall.

“It was easier to stay down there where we could get to school than have to miss and make up all of the schoolwork when we were finally able to get back to class,” he said, nodding as he stepped back so she could enter a bedroom. When he set her small suitcase on the bed, he hooked his thumb over his shoulder toward the door. “While you get settled, I have to drive over to the main house to see about a few things the owner needs me to take care of.”

“Was that the huge log home I passed just before I got here?” she asked, unzipping the overnight case to remove her flip-flops. She loved wearing heels, but she had been in them all day and her feet were beginning to hurt.

Blake nodded. “The owner had that built a couple of years ago. Right after he bought the ranch.”

“It’s beautiful,” she said, removing the heels to put on the flip-flops. “And it’s perfect for the rugged surroundings.”

He stared at her a moment before he turned and walked out into the hall. “I guess I’d better go on over to the main house. Make yourself at home. I won’t be long.”

As she heard him descend the stairs, she began to realize just how little she knew about the man she had married. In Las Vegas, Blake had literally swept her off her feet and charmed her into a fairy-tale week of romance, lovemaking and a wedding. But as idyllic as their time together had been, they hadn’t talked about their families or jobs, their hopes or their dreams.

“It would have never worked between us,” she murmured as she sat down on the side of the bed.

The realization was not a new one. So Karly had no idea why the words made her feel so sad. This was what she’d chosen—the way it had to be. She wasn’t about to make the same mistakes her mother had made. She wasn’t going to give up everything—her home, her lifestyle, her job—for a man and then resent him for her choices.

No matter how beautiful it was here or how cherished and safe Blake made her feel when he took her in his arms, she couldn’t live on this ranch with him any more than he could live with her in Seattle. And the sooner she accepted that truth, the better off she would be.

Two

Blake glanced over at his backpack, the thermal food carrier and the jug of iced tea on the truck seat beside him as he drove away from the main ranch house. His house.

He had never lied to Karly, not eight months ago and not today.

But he hadn’t been completely honest with her, either.

When they met in Las Vegas, he’d told her that besides competing in rodeo, he was the boss at the Wolf Creek Ranch in Wyoming. She had assumed that meant he was the foreman and he hadn’t bothered to set her straight. For one thing, they’d been so hot for each other, they hadn’t talked at length about their jobs or much of anything else. And for another, he didn’t go around flaunting the fact that he owned the Wolf Creek or that he was a multimillionaire.

He had firsthand knowledge of how the lure of money could influence people and he intended to avoid that kind of shallowness at all costs. He didn’t want the money to affect his relationships, and he’d been especially careful about what he’d shared with the woman he’d married so quickly. In the past, both he and his father had seen the ugly side of women hell-bent on getting their hands on a hefty bankroll and once had been enough to leave Blake more than a little cautious.

But he was fairly certain Karly had no knowledge about the size of his bank account. She had fallen for him—without the influence of his money. He had figured that when she joined him at the ranch it would be a nice surprise to let her know that they would never have financial worries like a lot of other couples starting out. Unfortunately, he hadn’t had the chance to tell her the truth because she’d decided that living in a big city without him was preferable to living on the ranch with him. She’d made that decision without the influence of his money, too.

In hindsight, he wished he’d told her right after they got married in Vegas. He didn’t want her thinking that he had been trying to hide his assets because of their pending divorce. That wasn’t the case at all. And he had every intention of telling her the truth, as well as providing her with a nice settlement for the very brief time they’d been married. He just needed to figure out the right time and way to go about doing that.

He could have told her about his wealth when she called from Seattle to tell him she thought they’d made a mistake and that ending the marriage would be for the best. But he’d decided against that because she might have assumed it was a desperate attempt on his part to get her to reconsider their divorce, to give them a chance. Him begging for a second chance was something that would never happen. Even if his pride had allowed it, it probably wouldn’t have made a difference. She’d had her mind made up and nothing he could have said would have changed it.

So he’d kept his secret and signed the papers. But he could have told her the truth today, too, when she’d mistakenly assumed the foreman’s cottage was his house and that the main house and ranch belonged to someone else. But he’d held back without really knowing why.

All he knew was that his ego had taken enough of a hit eight months ago, when he’d learned that while she might have been the woman of his dreams, he obviously hadn’t been the man of hers. And if he was perfectly honest with himself, there had probably been a little fear holding him back, as well. He hadn’t wanted to tell her he was rich and end up finding out that he’d been wrong about her—that Karly could be swayed by the temptation of his money.

As he steered his truck up the lane leading to the foreman’s cottage, he reached up to rub the tension building at the back of his neck. He wasn’t sure how something that had originally felt so right had gone so wrong. When he’d married Karly after only knowing her a week, the decision had seemed as natural as taking his next breath. Their whirlwind wedding carried on the Hartwell family tradition. Blake’s Grandma and Grandpa Hartwell had been married three days after meeting and his father and mother tied the knot two weeks after their first date. Both couples had successful marriages until death separated them and Blake had been sure it would be that way with himself and Karly. It was obvious now that he had been wrong.

Parking his truck beside the little red sports car, Blake took a deep breath and reached for his backpack, the thermal carrier full of food and the gallon thermos of iced tea he’d had his cook pack for their supper. There was no sense in trying to figure out how he could have misjudged Karly’s commitment to their relationship. He had and there wasn’t anything he could do about it now. Besides, he’d never been one to dwell on his mistakes.

As he walked toward the cottage, she opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. His breath caught and his heart thumped against his ribs. He felt the same pull that had drawn him to her the first time he’d laid eyes on her in Vegas. He forced himself to ignore the feeling. She might be the most exciting woman he’d ever known, but the sting of her rejection and her disdain for his lifestyle told him in no uncertain terms just how unimportant he was to her. She’d walked away from him once. He wouldn’t give her another chance to do it again.

Distracted by his turbulent thoughts, it took him a moment to notice the frown on her pretty face. “Is something wrong?” he asked as he climbed the steps.

“Where do you keep your food?” she answered his question with one of her own as they entered the house. “I was going to make something for dinner, but the refrigerator and pantry are both empty. If you live here why isn’t there anything in the house to eat?”

“I usually eat down at the bunkhouse with the single men or over at the main house,” he said truthfully as he set the cooler and jug of iced tea on the kitchen island, then turned to hang his hat on a peg by the door. He did eat with his men at the bunkhouse occasionally, just not as often as he ate what his cook made for him in the main house.

She looked doubtful. “Even in the winter when you’re snowed in?”

He couldn’t help but laugh at her erroneous assumption. “Sweetheart, there’s no such thing as getting snowed in around here. A ranch is a twenty-four-hours, seven-days-a-week operation. It never shuts down because the livestock are depending on us to take care of them. If it rains we get wet. If it snows we wade through it no matter how deep it gets or how cold it is.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.” Looking a little sheepish, she shook her head. “I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know anything about ranching.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He motioned toward the thermal carrier. “And don’t worry about cooking. I had the cook over at the main house pack up what he made for supper. Why don’t you set the table while I go wash up?”

He didn’t mention that he’d had to endure an interrogation and a stern lecture before old Silas finished loading the carrier with containers of food. A retired cowboy turned cook after his arthritis prevented him from doing ranch work, Silas Burrows had some definite ideas on how Blake should conduct his life and he didn’t mind sharing them every chance he got. Having a wife show up unexpectedly, one that Blake hadn’t told Silas about, definitely got the old boy started. As sure as the grass was green, Blake knew he hadn’t heard the end of what Silas had to say on the matter, either.

“I’ll have dinner on the table by the time you return,” she said as she started removing the food from the carrier to set it on the butcher-block island.

Blake watched her for a moment before he gritted his teeth and left the room. Karly had changed into a pair of khaki camp shorts and an oversize T-shirt while he was gone. She shouldn’t have looked the least bit appealing. But he’d be damned if just seeing her in the baggy shorts, shapeless shirt and bright pink flip-flops didn’t have him feeling as restless as a range-raised colt.

Disgusted with himself, he marched up the stairs and down the hall to the master bedroom. How could he want a woman who had rejected him? Who had rejected his way of life and the land he loved?

Setting his backpack on the cedar chest at the end of the bed, he walked into the adjoining bathroom to wash up. As he splashed cold water on his face to clear his head, he couldn’t help but think about the irony of the situation.

When Karly called him a few days after they parted in Vegas to tell him that she had changed her mind about being his wife, she hadn’t even been willing to discuss coming to Wyoming in order to see if they could save their brief marriage. Yet almost nine months later, here she was—in the very place she said she never wanted to see—with papers to end the union.

But as he dried his face and hands with one of the fluffy towels from the linen cabinet, he couldn’t help but think there had to have been something that happened when she got back to Seattle that had caused her change of heart. But what could it have been? Was there someone else she hadn’t told him about? Maybe an old flame or someone she had been seeing before they met?

He’d asked himself the same questions a hundred times—and just as often told himself to forget about solving the mystery. He had no way of knowing what went through her head. And no reason to ask once she’d been determined to end things between them.

But now that Karly was here, he had a golden opportunity that was just too damn good to pass up. All he had to do was convince her to stay at the ranch a few days, until the strike in Denver was settled. That would give him time to ask her what had happened, to find out what had changed her mind and why.

It might not be the smartest thing he’d ever wanted to do. And he knew that whatever he found out wouldn’t change the state of their marriage; he’d already signed the papers and let her go. Hell, he’d probably be better off not knowing. And he certainly wasn’t expecting anything about him or his ranch to change her mind, even if he did learn the answer.

But some perverse part of him felt that it was his right to know why she’d refused to even try to make a go of things with him.

With his mind made up, Blake went back downstairs to the kitchen to help Karly set the table. “I’ve been thinking. It doesn’t make any sense for you to spend money on a motel room when you can stay here for free,” he pointed out as he got two glasses down from one of the cabinets.

“I can’t do that,” she said, looking at him like he had sprouted another head.

“Why not?” he asked, pouring them each a glass of iced tea from the thermal jug.

“I don’t want to impose,” she said, placing a container of country-fried steaks on the table.

“How would you staying here be an imposition?” He carried the glasses to the table, then held her chair for her to sit down. “We’re still married and the last time I heard, a husband and wife staying in the same house isn’t all that unusual,” he added, laughing.

“We’re not going to be married that much longer,” she insisted. “We’re practically divorced already.”

“It doesn’t matter.” He shrugged as he seated himself at the head of the table and reached for the container of steaks. “You’re still my wife and that gives you the right to stay here.”

“We really don’t know each other,” she said, taking a bite of a seasoned potato wedge.

“That didn’t seem to be a deal breaker when you said ‘I do,’” he pointed out, before he could stop himself. He felt like a prize ass when he saw the wounded expression on her pretty face.

She stared at him for several long moments before she shook her head. “I think it would be best if I get that motel room tomorrow as planned.”

“Look, I’m sorry about what I just said.” He took a deep breath. “That was out of line.”

She stared at him for a moment longer before she shook her head again. “Not entirely. We were both—” she paused, as if searching for the right words “—caught up in the moment in Las Vegas. And I don’t think one of us was more at fault than the other.”

Maybe she had been caught up in the moment, but he had known exactly what he was doing and the commitment he was making when he vowed to take care of her for the rest of their lives. But arguing that point wasn’t going to accomplish what he had set out to do.

“That’s all water under the bridge now,” he said, shrugging. “But if you stay here, I’m sure you’ll be more comfortable than in a motel room. And you won’t have to drive the mountain roads more than once to get back to the airport.”

She gave him a suspicious look. “Why are you being so persistent about this, Blake?”

“I figure it will save you a few hundred bucks or so,” he said, thinking quickly. She obviously had to watch her finances. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have mentioned that by filing the divorce herself instead of having a lawyer do it for her she was saving money. But he wasn’t going to point out that he knew she was on a tight budget. She had her pride, the same as he did, and bringing up the state of her financial situation would probably send her back down the mountain as fast as that little red car could take her. “Besides, staying here beats sitting in a motel room for several days with nothing to do but stare at the four walls.”

He almost groaned aloud when she nibbled on her lower lip as she mulled over what he’d said. She wasn’t trying to be seductive, but it seemed like everything about her had his libido working overtime. Maybe it was due to the memories of making love to her that haunted his dreams at night. Or, more likely, it was the fact that he hadn’t been with a woman since they’d parted ways in Las Vegas. Whatever the reason behind his overactive hormones, he had every intention of ignoring them.

“I suppose not having anything to do would be pretty boring,” she finally conceded. “But I wouldn’t have anything to do here, either.”

“Sure you would,” he said, careful not to sound too eager. “There’s never a lack of things to do around a ranch. You could help me feed the horses and a couple of orphaned calves. And tomorrow afternoon, you can ride up to the summer pasture with me to check on a herd of steers we’ll be moving back down here in a couple of weeks.”

“You mean ride a horse?” When he nodded, she vigorously shook her head. “That’s not an option.”

“Why?”

“Other than a pony ride at the grand opening of a grocery store when I was five, I’ve never been on a horse,” she said, taking a sip of her iced tea.

That explained her skittish reaction to Boomer when she’d first arrived. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got the perfect horse for you and it won’t take any time to teach you how to ride her.”

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” she commented, reaching for a roll. “Horses don’t like me.”

“Why do you say that?” he asked. “You just admitted that you’ve never really been around horses. How would you know if they like you or not?”

She frowned. “Your horse snorted and stomped his foot at me this afternoon. If that wasn’t an indication he didn’t like me, I don’t know what is.”

“Hoof,” he countered, correcting her. “Horses have hooves and he was just shooing away a fly when he moved his leg.” Blake took a bite of his steak. “And for the record, Boomer didn’t snort. Gently blowing through his nose like that is a horse’s way of sighing. It signals that he’s relaxed, curious or in some cases just saying hello. Boomer was just being friendly.”

“His name doesn’t exactly instill a lot of confidence,” she said, shaking her head. “Boomer sounds rather...explosive.”

Blake laughed out loud at her inaccurate assumption that the gentle gelding’s name reflected his temperament. “Boomer is short for Boomerang and the reason he got that name is because he likes people so much he can’t stay away from them. I can turn him out into a pasture with other horses and before I know it, he turns around and comes right back to me.”

“That’s great, but it doesn’t mean he likes me,” she said, looking doubtful.

Blake grinned. “I’ll introduce you tomorrow morning when we go out to the barn to take care of the calves. You’ll see. He’s as gentle as a lapdog.”

She looked skeptical, but didn’t comment until they had finished their meal. “I can help you feed the babies, but I’m afraid riding a horse tomorrow is out of the question. I didn’t expect to be away from home more than a couple of nights and I really don’t have anything to wear that would be suitable for a horseback ride.”

He smiled at the relief he heard in her soft voice. He’d bet every dime he had that she’d spent the entire meal trying to think of a way to get out of riding.

“We’ll remedy that tomorrow morning after I get the feeding done,” he said, smiling as he helped her clear the table. “We’ll make a trip down to Eagle Fork’s Western store and get everything you need.”

“That sounds like a lot of time and trouble for a pair of jeans,” she said as she put containers of leftovers into the refrigerator. “And besides, I don’t want to interfere with the work you need to get done.”

“It won’t be any trouble at all,” Blake said, barely able to keep from laughing at her attempts to escape his plans. He was not only determined to find out what she wasn’t telling him, he was also going to give her a ranch experience she’d never forget. “I need to get a new shirt for a Labor Day barbecue on Monday anyway and you’ll need something to wear to that as well. In fact, it would probably be a good idea to get you enough clothes for a few days since there’s no telling how long the strike will last.”

“I can’t crash your friend’s party,” she said as she turned to wipe off the kitchen island.

“You won’t be crashing the party.” Blake wasn’t about to take no for an answer. “You’ll go as my date.”

“That would be rather awkward,” she insisted.

“Only if you make it that way,” he said, even though he knew she was right.

“How on earth would you even introduce me?” She gave him a pointed look. “We may be married right now, but we’re little more than strangers on the way to a divorce. We wouldn’t even be married if the papers had arrived as they should have. I’d just as soon avoid a lot of questions about our hasty marriage and the upcoming divorce.”

“Easy. I’ll just tell them that we met in Vegas and you came for a visit,” Blake explained.

She stared at him before she frowned. “Do you really think it will take that long for the strike to be settled?”

He shrugged. “It’s a holiday weekend. There’s really no telling. Even if they come to an agreement over the weekend it’s going to take at least a day or two for the airlines to get all of the schedules lined up and the passengers from the canceled flights who haven’t found other means of transportation on their way again. And with Labor Day on Monday that’s going to delay things even more.”

“I suppose I could drive from here to Lincoln County,” Karly said, looking thoughtful.

“I know you want to get this divorce over with, but do you really want to drive fifteen or sixteen hours in holiday traffic?” he asked. “You couldn’t possibly get there tomorrow before the courthouse closes and it won’t reopen again until Tuesday. By that time the strike might be settled and you’d be able to fly.”

She didn’t look happy about what he was saying, but she finally nodded. “You’re probably right.”

“I know I am.” When she yawned, he pointed toward the hall. “I can finish cleaning the kitchen. Why don’t you go ahead and turn in for the night? Mornings around here start early.”

“How early are we talking about?” she asked, hiding another yawn with her delicate hand.

“I’ll start feeding the livestock in the barns around dawn,” he said as he loaded the dishwasher. “That will take about an hour. Since you don’t really have suitable clothes for that yet, I’ll wake you up after I get finished.”

She looked horrified. “Good Lord, are the animals even awake at that time of day?”

“They’re not only awake, they’re usually making a lot of noise because they know it’s time for breakfast,” he said, laughing.

When she yawned again, she started toward the hall. “In that case, I think I’ll follow your advice and go to bed.” She stopped at the door and turned back. “Thank you, Blake.”

“What for?” he asked, walking over to her.

“For giving me a place to stay until the strike is settled and for being so nice about all of this,” she said quietly. “You really didn’t have to be, considering how badly I handled filing for the divorce.”

He barely resisted the urge to reach for her. As he stuffed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans to keep himself from doing something stupid like taking her in his arms and kissing her until they both gasped for air, he shook his head. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You had no control over what happened after you put the papers in the mail. And like I told you earlier, I’m old-fashioned. As long as we’re married it’s my job to provide you with a roof over your head and something to eat.”

She stared at him for several long moments before she finally nodded. “Well, thank you anyway. Good night.”

“Yeah, see you in the morning,” he mumbled as he watched her walk down the hall to the stairs.

Taking a deep breath, he waited until he heard her close the door to her bedroom before he started the dishwasher and turned out the kitchen light. As he slowly climbed the stairs to his own guest room, he couldn’t help but wonder how everything had become so damn complicated. Eight months ago, things had been simple. He’d found the woman he was going to spend the rest of his life with and she’d told him that he was the man she wanted to share hers with, too.

He had no idea what had changed from the time they left Vegas until she called him a few days later from Seattle to tell him she wasn’t joining him at the ranch as planned. But one thing was sure—before she left this ranch to file for divorce and return to her life in the city, he had every intention of getting an explanation and settling the matter once and for all.

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