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They ate in silence for a few minutes.
“Do you have any thoughts about who it could be?” Bree asked.
It felt like a now-or-never situation. “I don’t have any suspicions, but I wanted to ask you about Lucas Brewer. Has he ever shown an interest in you? Romantically, I mean.”
Bree sat back in her chair, lifting her shades as she watched Nance taking her duckling brood for a stroll across the grass. She appeared to be surprised by the question. “Lucas? No, I can’t say... I mean, he’s suggested going for coffee once or twice, but just in a friendly way. You can’t think it’s him?”
“I’m not ruling anyone out.” He kept his voice casual. “Did you take him up on his offer?”
“For coffee? No.” She brought her gaze back to Rylan’s face. He could see her struggling to find the right words. “I’ve only had two relationships and both times I found out they were more interested in the fact that I’m a Colton than in me as a person. It’s made me careful.”
Rylan wanted to close his eyes and shut out the pain he could see in her face. It was obvious how hard it was for her to talk about this, and he knew that telling him, of all people, was even worse. Because she hadn’t been careful with him. She had tumbled into his arms, giving herself to him freely and happily. She had trusted him. And she’d been wrong to do so.
“Even though I didn’t think there was any romantic intention behind Lucas’s offer, I decided it was better to be cautious.”
“That’s no way to live your life.” Rylan didn’t want to be Lucas Brewer’s advocate. He just couldn’t bear the thought of Bree—beautiful, vibrant Bree—weighing every situation and deciding it wasn’t worth taking a chance.
Then I came along and made it worse.
Rylan hadn’t been with her because of her money, but he’d taken a hammer to her already fragile self-esteem and smashed it into tiny pieces. Bree didn’t answer, but her steady gaze told him she knew what he was thinking. That look, together with her question about whether they’d had sex while she was drunk, was like holding up a mirror to his already shattered self-belief.
Worthless? Meet the poster boy.
Her answer to his question hadn’t ruled Lucas out. It was impossible to know what the other man’s feelings were. Bree’s impression was that his offers of coffee were not leading up to anything romantic, but was that how Lucas saw it? What if the reality was that he was trying to find a way to get to know the woman he had secretly been admiring from afar? Certainly, his body language when he was around Bree revealed an interest that went beyond friendship. By turning him down, could Bree have triggered his anger?
Rylan didn’t like it as a solution. You Coltons are only good for using and taking advantage of those who are less fortunate. That was what the first email had said. He couldn’t see any link between Bree turning down an offer of coffee from Lucas and that sentence.
“Do you ride?” Bree looked surprised at the abrupt change of subject. “You’re a farm girl, of course you do. What I should have said was... Will your hangover cope with a ride this afternoon?”
She pulled a face at him. “Me and my hangover will outride you any day.”
“That sounds like fighting talk, wise gal.” The endearment slipped out, and he waited for the storm to break over his head. It didn’t. Instead, he caught a gleam in Bree’s eye that might almost have been one of pleasure.
She got to her feet. “I want to check on Boo before I do anything else. He’s started eating some grain, and he let Golly share his kiddie pool yesterday.”
Her smile was radiant as she talked about the gander who seemed to have turned a corner now that he had a new friend. Bree had brought him back to life.
The way she did with me.
The thought jolted him as he watched her walk away. Because, one day soon, he would have to watch her leave for good. And, just like Boo when he lost Lucy, he didn’t know how he was going to cope with the pain.
* * *
“My dad always says the only way to connect with the land is from the back of a horse,” Bree said. It was months since she’d last been on a ride, and it felt good to be in the saddle once more.
