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“The woman whose clothes are in the barn, the one who made you afraid to become involved with other women.”
Why anyone would want to hurt someone as thoughtful and caring as Cord was a mystery to Alexis. Then she realized that if she wasn’t careful, she’d end up hurting him, too, whether she intended to or not.
Cord’s voice interrupted her troubled thoughts. “You don’t want to hear about her.”
“Sure I do.”
“I guess you’d say it started back when I was twenty-two…after my parents died in a collision with a tractor-trailer. It was up to me to keep the Brazen H up and running. After a while, rambling alone in this place got to me.”
“I couldn’t imagine the overwhelming loneliness. It isn’t like you have any close neighbors or anything.”
The muscles in his neck worked as he swallowed. “To make a long story short, I fell for a good-looking and outgoing young woman. Things moved fast—too fast.”
“But she must have cared about you.” Alexis couldn’t imagine any woman in her right mind not falling for him.
He shrugged. “Maybe at first. I didn’t want to be here alone, and she wanted to escape her family’s poverty. So we eloped.”
“Was it your idea?” She couldn’t imagine Mr. Cautious taking such a big leap without lots of thought.
“No. But I went along with it. Things were okay at first, but it all changed after her artwork started to get noticed.”
Alexis reached out and squeezed his thigh.
“After five or so years, Susan decided ranch life wasn’t for her. She packed up her paintings and left, taking half of the ranch’s equity with her.”
So that’s how he’d ended up in this horrible jam.
He sighed and ran a hand over the back of his neck. “I tried to reason with her, but she was too caught up in her rising career. She wanted to sell the Brazen H. She wanted—oh, it doesn’t matter anymore. She didn’t want to hear anything I had to say. And I couldn’t do what she asked of me.”
Alexis’s body tensed. He might as well have been talking about her. Her only reason for being in town was to take away a part of his ranch. She was doing it mainly for her father and his company, but she doubted Cord would make the distinction. From his standpoint, she was no better than his ex. The thought lodged in Alexis’s stomach like a jagged rock.
She glanced at Cord, seeing the same emotional turmoil on his face that she felt inside. She wanted to tell him it was different with them, but was it? Would she visit again after their business was concluded? Or would she find herself sucked back into the fast-paced life in New York—the life that left no time to think about a vacation?
“How about you?” he asked. “Ever had anyone special in your life?”
“I was engaged once,” she admitted, not wanting to delve into those painful memories, but she realized it was only fair that she share since he had.
“What happened?”
Borrowing a phrase from Cord, she said, “To make a long story short, his work led him to the West Coast, and mine kept me in New York.”
“Couldn’t hack the long-distance relationship?”
“Something like that.” She failed to mention that within two months of moving, her fiancé had had a new girlfriend—a girlfriend Alexis hadn’t learned about until the woman answered the phone very early one morning.
Cord set the swing gently rocking. “Do you think you could ever be happy living somewhere other than New York?”
That was the million-dollar question. After spending time here in the Southwest, she’d fallen in love with the acres of sprawling red clay and living in the shadow of Roca Mountain. But there was something else more important to consider…
“I can’t leave my father, not when his health is failing.”
“Is he that bad?”
“If I don’t convince him to retire...” She blinked, holding back the tears that stung her eyes. She couldn’t repeat the dire prediction the doctor had given them should her father have another coronary episode.
“That’s tough.” Cord’s fingers grazed down her cheek.
“What about us?” Her eyes searched his. She’d been dying to ask this question all evening, but she’d held back, fearing his answer.
