Honeymoon With the Rancher

“And I didn’t tell you everything because I was starting to care for you, too, and I thought if you knew, it would ruin what time we had together.”

“Why would you think that? It’s wonderful that you set up the business with them. They adore you. She was your fiancée, Maria and Carlos’s daughter. She is a part of you. Knowing about her wouldn’t have changed anything, Tomas. It’s not like it was your fault.”

Tomas let go of her hand, slid down the bench and stared straight ahead. “But it is my fault, Sophia. Rosa died because of me.”

Tomas hadn’t planned on telling her everything. Especially today, knowing she hadn’t truly trusted him. He’d thought they were over. But the boat ride had changed everything. He loved her. There was no question in his mind now. And there could be no more secrets between them, especially now when she had told him the truth.

But oh, it was tearing him apart to say the words.

“I meant what I said earlier, Sophia. I would do anything to protect you. But I didn’t protect Rosa. She died because of me. Because of the man I was. I was like Antoine. I was focused on business. We were supposed to have dinner to talk about wedding plans, but I was working late, trying to finish up a final deal before a board meeting the next day. Rosa called to say she would meet me at the restaurant. She walked instead of me picking her up. But she never made it to the restaurant.”

He swallowed. Wanted to feel Sophia close to him, but he couldn’t bear to look at her face right now. He wasn’t the knight in shining armor she seemed to believe him to be. He didn’t want to see the disappointment in her eyes. So he folded his hands on his knees and forged forward.

“She was mugged on the way to the restaurant. She must have put up a fight—the Rosa I knew wouldn’t have gone along easily. There were scrapes where her engagement ring had been pulled off her finger. The coroner said she hit her head when she fell. By the time she was found and taken to the hospital, it was too late. And it all could have been avoided if I’d picked her up like I’d promised instead of being full of myself and of work.”

“Oh, Tomas,” Sophia said softly.

“You see?” He jumped to his feet, moved a few steps away. “That’s what I didn’t want. Pity. I don’t deserve pity, Sophia!”

“So you turned your back on the company, on your family, and decided to punish yourself by isolating yourself at the estancia?”

He nodded, knowing he shouldn’t be surprised that she understood. This was Sophia. Sophia who seemed to get everything about him.

“Maria and Carlos never blamed me. Being close to them I was close to her. And I could help them. It was more than my duty. I wanted to.”

It had been the only way he could think of to help. Maria needed people around, people to mother. There was no more Rosa, Miguel was gone to Córdoba and the grandchildren she yearned for were a distant hope. “I couldn’t stand to see the loneliness in Maria’s eyes anymore. We built the place together.”

“What about your family in Buenos Aires? They must miss you. And the company. Did you resign?”

“My brother took my place. And my father and mother…” He swallowed. Yes, they had their faults but they loved him. He knew that. The Rodriguez family didn’t run in the same circles as the Mendozas, but he’d finally admitted to himself that his parents had been good to Rosa. Their concern hadn’t been for appearances but for Rosa, and how she would adjust to the kind of life she’d never known.

Finally, finally, he looked at Sophia.

She was sitting on the bench, her jeans dark with water, the wet patches on her shirt with still drying. Any makeup she’d worn had been washed away in the spray and her hair lay in dark, wet curls. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. And he knew as sure as he was standing here that somehow he couldn’t let her go.

“My father told me there is always a place for me at Motores Mendoza. It was me who shut the door.”

“And will you open it now?”

Would he? He found himself blinking as he thought of his father’s booming laugh and his mother’s soft smile. He had tried to stop feeling for so long, but Sophia had changed everything. She had made him feel alive again—with pain but there was also pleasure. Warmth. Hope.

“I still do not think the company is where I will be happy. For me it is still the pampas and the estancia. It is where I belong, Sophia.” He realized it was true. He was through with the city and boardrooms and suits and ties. Even if the Vista del Cielo wasn’t exactly as he remembered, he knew he wanted the wild freedom of the pampas, the simple evenings by the fire and the sound of the birds at the end of the day. But rejecting the life was different from rejecting the people, and he’d done both for too long. “But I need to mend things with my family. And it is you who has shown me that.”

Sophia looked up at him, in awe of the man he was, a man perhaps he did not even see. A man who had carried the heavy load of his burdens and responsibilities and sacrificed his own heart for it.

She stood from the bench, her damp jeans tight and uncomfortable on her legs, but that didn’t matter. Not at this moment, with this man. She knew the one thing he needed, because it was the one thing she’d needed her whole life long. She went to him, lifted her face to his and said simply, “I love you, Tomas.”

For a fleeting second, shock made a blank of his face as he seemed to struggle to understand. So she repeated it, this time in his own language: “Te amo, Tomas.”

He cupped her head in both hands and kissed her, a kiss full of love and wonder and pain and acceptance all at once. She twined her arms around his neck as his hands slid from her face down to her waist and pulled her close. She melted against him, wanting his kiss, his touch, to go on forever.

But it couldn’t, and knowing that added an urgency, a desperation to the way she pressed herself against him. Now she wished she’d made love to him while she’d had the chance. She wished she hadn’t been so afraid. It had nothing to do with losing her virginity. It was about wanting to be as close to someone as a person could be. It wasn’t about the physical, it was about loving him wholly.

Tomas’s hands settled on her hips and pushed her back slightly so that the kiss broke off. She was breathing heavily and Tomas’s chest rose and fell with effort, but it was the look in his eyes that undid her. It was yearning. The same yearning she’d been feeling only seconds before. She wasn’t afraid of it anymore. “Te amo, Sophia. And I never expected to love anyone ever again.”

He took her hand and pressed it to his cheek. “I don’t want you to leave. I don’t know what the solution is, but I can’t bear to lose you. And we have so little time…”

“What are you asking, Tomas?” Say the words, she thought desperately. Say the words so I can say yes.