“But I won’t be here that long,” she argued, trying to make him understand. “Something cheaper would have served the purpose just as well.”
She’d tried to tell him when he insisted she put them on that they were far too expensive. But when he gently wrapped his hand around her calf as he took her high heel off to put one of the boots on, her brain had short-circuited. Somewhere between her vocal cords and opened mouth her objection had turn into a gasp of awareness. His smile and the twinkle in his sexy brown eyes indicated that he’d noticed, but he didn’t comment as he worked the boot onto her foot and she couldn’t get her voice to work long enough to protest further.
He closed the door, walked around the front of the truck and got in behind the steering wheel. “Let’s get something straight. As long as you’re at the ranch and we’re still married, I provide for you. That includes the clothes and hat you’ll wear and the boots on your feet. There are some things that I won’t skimp on, no matter how expensive they are, because in most cases, you get what you pay for. Hats and boots are two of those things.” He surprised her when he reached over to cover her hand with his. “And don’t worry about me charging all of this on the ranch account. When the bill comes in, I’ll pay for it.”
The feel of his calloused palm on her skin and the memory of how his hands had felt on her body when they made love sent a shiver of longing straight up her spine. She tried her best to dismiss the reaction as nothing more than nerves. But as they continued to stare at each other, she knew it was going to take everything in her to keep from falling under his charming spell again.
She quickly slid her hand from beneath his and concentrated on what he’d said. “Blake, I appreciate that you feel it’s your responsibility to see that I have what I need,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “But I don’t feel right about you buying a whole wardrobe for me.”
He gave her a cursory glance as he started the truck and steered it out of the parking lot onto the street. “Why not?”
“If I had handled the divorce differently, you wouldn’t be in the awkward position of giving me a place to stay or feeling obligated to buy things for me,” she said, feeling guilty. For that matter, if she hadn’t been so impulsive and made promises she hadn’t been able to keep when they were in Las Vegas, neither of them would have found themselves in their current situation.
“Don’t beat yourself up over this,” he said, surprising her. “You did what you thought was best and it didn’t turn out the way you planned.” He stared straight ahead as he added, “It happens to the best of us.”
Her guilt increased when she realized he was talking about his own plans for them to live together as husband and wife. He had every right to be bitter about how she’d ended things, but instead he was treating her like the wife she’d never been to him. Suddenly, she was wishing things could have worked out differently—but she quickly squashed that traitorous thought. “I suppose you’re right,” she murmured.
They fell silent for several minutes as Blake drove out of town toward the ranch. “Why don’t we start over?” he suggested, breaking the silence.
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“There’s no sense wasting time pointing fingers or feeling guilty about what went wrong between us,” he said pragmatically. “We’ve both signed the papers already. So why don’t we forget the real reason for your trip to the ranch and look at this holiday weekend as a friendly visit? I’ll show you what ranch life is all about.” He laughed. “And you can look on your time here as one of those vacations people take just to play cowboy.”
Her chest tightened at his offer, at the consideration he was showing her. They both knew she was to blame for the entire fiasco and that he had been terribly disappointed with her decisions. But he was willing to put aside any hard feelings in order for her stay at the Wolf Creek Ranch to be more pleasant. If she hadn’t been so afraid that quitting her job and moving so far away from the city would turn her into her mother, she would have loved having this man for her husband.