Beautiful. Intelligent. Courageous. Passionate.
His smile broadened. And, though he’d be damned if he’d admit it without a fight, she could ride a horse as well as any man.
And he would never have met her, if his grandfather had not conspired to make it happen.
Lucas’s smile faded.
Still, what had been done to her was wrong. To him, too, but somehow, that didn’t seem important. It was his Lyssa who had suffered in all of this.
Not anymore.
Lucas slid his hand into his pocket and felt the heavy vellum on which the contract and the addendum were written. It was over now. His Lyssa would get her land, free and clear. He would add a substantial check so she could start the process of building it back to what it had been. She’d protest, of course, so he’d have to come up with some plan she’d find acceptable. That he wanted to invest in the ranch, maybe.
Something like that.
More to the point, the stipulation had been rendered invalid.
She didn’t have to marry him. He didn’t have to marry her. He could tell his pilot to take her back to Texas. They could put this behind them, remember it as just a brief, hot interlude.
Alyssa turned, saw him and smiled.
Was that how he’d remember it? As sex? Would he only recall his Lyssa as she’d been in his bed? Incredible was the word for that but his heart told him he would remember these days, and his Lyssa, as more than that.
She started toward him. He watched the way she walked, that proud stride that he loved. The way her hair bounced against her shoulders. The tilt of her chin, the glow of her blue eyes.
Would that glow dim, if only a little, when she said goodbye?
A thought burned its way into his brain. A crazy thought. Something he could say that would keep her here…
When she reached him, she lay her hand lightly on his arm. “Is your grandfather all right?”
“He’s fine.” Lucas took her hand in his and rubbed his thumb lightly over the delicate knuckles. “A little tired, that’s all.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what, chica?”
“For being so hard on him.”
“You?” Lucas smiled. “You were gentle, amada. More so than he deserved.”
“What he did—what he and Aloysius did—was wrong but they meant well. And he’s so frail…”
“Trust me, chica. He’s a tough old bird.”
“He is,” she said with a little smile. “I could see you in him in another fifty years.” Her smile tilted. “But I was disrespectful and I shouldn’t have been. You love him and he loves you. He thought he was doing the right thing or he wouldn’t have done it.”
“Si. But it does not excuse it.”
“Still, I could have—”
“You could have called him a meddling old fool, but you didn’t. You could have treated him to one of those right crosses you tried on me.” Lucas brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. “I’d say my grandfather got off easy.”
“Honestly?”
“Si. And he knows it. So don’t feel guilty. If anything, he respects you all the more for standing up to him.”
She let out a long breath. “I feel better.”