The Cowboy's Twins. Tara Taylor Quinn

who were willing just to have fun, but she wasn’t interested in their kind of fun.

      The show was her life. It fulfilled her. And made her so happy she didn’t ever even question her personal choices.

      She knew what drove her. Knew her goals. She knew who she was. And knew what she could and could not let others expect from her. She knew what promises she could and could not make.

      “I know Johnny hurt you, Natasha, but it’s been almost a year...”

      Johnny Campbell. Her “Stan.” The man she’d thought would be her companion for life. They were best friends. Good together. Neither of them were interested in cohabitating or giving up their autonomy.

      He was a stockbroker, a mover and shaker who worked unending hours. He’d been her stockbroker. Until she found out he’d been stealing from her. Telling her he was investing her money when what he’d been doing was gambling with it.

      Thankfully she’d found out during one of his winning streaks and hadn’t lost as much as she might have.

      “I’m not still hurting over Johnny,” she said now, a bit surprised to feel how completely true those words were. “I’m open to dating on occasion. I just haven’t met anyone who tempts me to spend time with him more than the show tempts me to spend time with it.”

      Also true.

      She was thirty-one, not twenty, and knew that her chances of finding a companionship as open-ended as the one she’d shared with Johnny were dwindling.

      She just didn’t dwell on the fact. She wasn’t going to let panic or fear for her future change her mind about what she knew she needed in her present.

      Like her mother, she was too bossy, too impatient, too strong and independent to be good in a commitment like marriage.

      As she sat there, talking Angela all the way back to the ranch, she found peace with her day. Her mother’s breakup with Stan...it was okay. Because her mother was truly okay with it. She’d made the choice that was best for her, the one she could live with, be good at, be happy with. Which made it the right choice.

      Whew.

      Getting ready for bed an hour later, Natasha was humming to herself. The day had been rough. Touch and go for a second or two there. But she’d made it through.

      And was ready to embrace her world in the morning.

      * * *

      SPENCER WAS UP before dawn. He checked on Ellie. Had a meeting with Bryant to ensure that he had no immediate problems on the ranch. The ranch hands were handling several tasks that day—fixing a fence that was showing wear, checking a couple of cows from the stock herd who were close to calving, seeing to a bull that had been seen limping on one of the camera monitors, receiving a large load of hay that was being shipped...

      And Spencer was packing a lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on wheat bread with potato chips and apple slices. As soon as the twins were up, they were heading out for a day of four-wheeling. Spencer driving and the twins strapped in beside him. Far enough away from the compound that Justin couldn’t somehow create havoc among the ranch visitors that day.

      He had the TV filming schedule. And though his kids were tired, he kept them off-roading, laughing over dips in hills and taking small mountains like pros, until well after the tour bus had been scheduled to roll off his property with all Family Secrets contestants on board.

      Making a mental note to give Bryant the rundown on the state of more fence lines he’d inspected that day, he fed the kids an early dinner and left them with Betsy while he went to check on the rest of the ranch. On Ellie.

      Because it was on his property, and ultimately his responsibility, he stopped by the barn-turned-television-set. A handful of crew members remained, busily moving around the stage with clipboards, setting up cameras, working with lighting, cleaning mini-refrigerators in the kitchen.

      He didn’t see Natasha, which was fine. He wasn’t looking for her.

      The only reason she’d been on his mind all day was the money she was paying him. He needed her contestants able to cook in his barn, her filming to go well and her crew willing to work with what they had and be able to produce the quality show her network and viewers expected out of Family Secrets.

      In the end, after collecting the kids and putting them to bed, he headed out to the farthest cabin in the compound. Just to be a good host. And put his mind at ease that all had gone well.

      The cabin was completely dark, and Natasha’s SUV was no longer parked beside it. He’d thought she, like her crew, would be spending one more night on the ranch before heading back to the city for the week.

      Apparently he’d been wrong.

      She’d already left—without bothering to say goodbye.