“Swaggering, arrogant—” she muttered, then a flash of a younger, boyish Tanner, clad in his football armor and winking at her, set her heart tumbling. She didn’t want to remember how he had looked all those years ago, walking toward her, dark eyes gleaming, the night of the Sweetheart Dance. She was just eighteen and it was the first time Tanner had taken her to a dance. She’d been thrilled, freed from her father, filled with summer’s sweet expectations and wearing her first dressy dress, borrowed from Kylie. Tanner had taken her in his arms for the last dance, and she’d felt he was taking her in his arms for a lifetime—
Now, she shivered, mentally tearing herself away from that sweet moment years ago. She’d made a life she could live and without her father’s steady demands, she found peace in a hard day’s work and long, quiet hours at her wheel. She missed Leather, of course, because despite his stingy, hard ways, she was his daughter and loved him. But Anna had been the mother she’d never known—sweet, loving Anna, who understood her fears and always offered a comforting cup of herbal tea….
Gwyneth slashed her forearm across her face, the flannel wiping away the tears. She swallowed and straightened with the resolve that had served her through the years of keeping the Smith ranch, of paying her father’s medical bills. Dew hung on the pasture, and mist layered the morning. Somehow she’d work and manage as she always had…and then Tanner would be gone. He’d only come to set his mother’s house aright, a sad obligation; then he’d be off to a life far from Freedom Valley. She had only to wait. She’d coolly smile at the town’s friendly nudges toward her ex-husband, keep quiet, and mind her own business.
“Oh my, he’s a handsome man. He’s got those wide shoulders and that seaman’s walk and he’s sweet just like Anna. I see her in him,” Willa at the café had said, taking the fresh eggs from Gwyneth. “I’m glad you’re keeping Anna’s chickens. She would have liked that, because she clearly loved you like a daughter.”
Yesterday, Tanner’s dislike of her, a woman who had run from her marriage bed and shivered in fear, was as clear as the wide blue Montana sky. His scowl had turned into a wicked, taunting grin because he knew the truth of their wedding night and the consummation that never took place. It was their secret that he could hold and twist and torment—“Oh, Gwynnie…”
She hated him for that—for holding a part of her life that she’d shared with no one, except his mother. But Tanner didn’t know the reason she fled that night and she wouldn’t give that to him, too. She’d told her deepest fears and the reasons for them to Anna, who had held her as she’d cried.
She had work to do, a ranch to tend, and pots to make and none of that required any thought of an ex-husband. There in the shadows of the barn, the cats daintily licking at the fresh creamy milk she’d given them, Gwyneth kicked the tractor’s tire again. She was in an evil, dark mood and Tanner was the cause of her missing sleep. As she had done for years, she threw out her hands and released the biggest yell possible, stirring the swallows in the rafters. With a quick, tight, satisfied smile that her frustration release technique had worked, she jerked the leather gloves from her back pocket, jamming them onto her hands.
A sharp, happy bark whipped her head around to the doorway, where the intruder stood. She couldn’t see his face, but the tall, powerful lines of his body said Tanner had come to call, Penny and Rolf nuzzling against his hands. “Get off my land, Tanner,” she snapped, walking toward him.
There was no Leather to stand between them now, no sweet Anna to help soothe the rough edges of her fears. Time had changed Gwyneth, for now she wanted to deal with that nasty mood prowling between them. She’d been in control of her life before he’d come back and she’d liked her freedom; she wouldn’t have another man pulling her strings by anger or by love. “Penny. Rolf. Down,” Gwyneth ordered and immediately the dogs sat by Tanner.
“You yelled?” he asked in an overpolite tone. “You seem to like doing that.” In the misty morning, his hair was damp and waving, his jaw dark with stubble. His mouth was set in the same unforgiving grim line as yesterday, but today fury burned his deep-set eyes. The black sweatshirt he wore emphasized his dangerous look, his worn jeans and work boots damp with dew from his walk to her house. “You should answer your telephone, Gwyneth. I didn’t like your little visit yesterday. It wasn’t polite. I thought I’d repay the favor and even the score.”
She cut her hand across a layer of cool mist, tearing away the cobweb tenderness of the past. “There is no score between us. I stay on my land and you’re trespassing, Bennett.”
“You’re in a nasty mood, Mrs. Bennett. Had a good night’s sleep, did you?” he asked in a dark, pleasant tone that lifted the hairs on her nape. The name Bennett slapped her, accused her.
“Did you?” she tossed back; she had no guilt to spare for him. Gwyneth resented looking up those inches to his face, resented the tremor that went through her, the memories that had been safely tucked away slashing at her.
He handed her a note written by Anna. “This was by her telephone.”
The note read: “Call Gwyneth. Ask her to plow my garden.”
Gwyneth fought the hot burn of her tears, carefully folding the note and tucking it into her bib overalls pocket; she’d read it again later, treasuring a woman she loved. “I usually do that for her. That was six weeks ago….”
“You never plowed it.” Tanner’s voice was angry, biting her, condemning her. His gaze slashed the corral gate, hanging from one hinge, the unpainted house and the assortment of old farm equipment rusting in the field. “You’re killing yourself on this place. You’ve got guard dogs—trained guard dogs—four locks on the front and back doors, and you’re…”
His lips clamped on the rest and he scowled at her. “I want this cleaned up. I’m not going anywhere soon and I don’t want you tearing into my mother’s driveway again for a kamikaze attack. You’re working too hard,” he added more softly, watching her too intently, as though he could see where the darkness tore at her.
“Ranch work is hard. It’s my land now and I’m keeping it. Fences don’t mend themselves, you know, and cattle still have to be fed in the winter, when a blizzard comes through.”
Tanner slammed his open hand against the weathered barn boards. “Don’t hand me that. You’re still terrified of men—or is it just me? Everything was fine until that night—you were a bit pale and jittery looking, but innocent brides-to-be are known to be—What happened to you, Gwyneth?”
“Lay off,” she said, brushing by him and slapping her bare thigh for her dogs to follow. Penny and Rolf remained at Tanner’s boots, tongues hanging out as they grinned, their tails happily thumping the ground.
She slapped her bare thigh again, impatiently this time, and Tanner’s easy smile wasn’t nice. “We’ve become friends. As soon as your van leaves, they both run to mother’s house. They each have a bowl at her back steps and I just continued to feed them as she had done. They are trained guard dogs and I want to know why. Invite me in and we’ll chat. Just to set the rules. Unless you’re afraid.”
Afraid? When had she not been afraid? Gwyneth tried to ignore the pounding of her heart and fought back to when she hadn’t been afraid—she hadn’t been afraid of Tanner and Leather was a man others feared, keeping her safe. Then just before the wedding, her life had changed. “I’m not afraid of anything,” she lied.
“Well, then, you won’t be afraid to invite me in for a neighborly chat, will you?”
“You’re nosing around here, just for the sheer nastiness of it. Anna wouldn’t have liked that.”
He looked down at her, and for a heartbeat, the hard line of his