“Good idea,” Lauren said approvingly. She turned her attention back to Karen. “So? What have you decided? I’ve got my checkbook with me.”
“I’m not going to sell the ranch to anybody,” Karen said, feeling guilty at the disappointment that spread across Lauren’s face. “I’m just going to let Grady think I might.”
“You’re testing him?” Gina asked, looking uneasy. “Do you think that’s wise?”
“That could be the only way she ever finds out for sure what he really feels for her,” Emma said, her expression thoughtful. She hesitated, then said slowly, “I say go for it.”
“If he asks me, I’ll back you up,” Lauren agreed.
Karen turned to Gina. “Well?”
Gina sighed. “Do what you have to do,” she said with obvious reluctance. “But lying has a way of backfiring. If it were me, I’d take a different route, but then I’ve had a lot of bad experiences with liars lately.”
“Care to explain that?” Emma asked.
“Nope,” Gina said. “Let’s get one life straightened out at a time. Mine can wait.”
After making that ominous declaration, Gina excused herself and departed, leaving the rest of them staring silently after her.
“It has something to do with that mysterious man who’s been hanging around,” Lauren said. “I know it does.”
“Pestering her for answers won’t do a bit of good. When it comes to being tight-lipped, Gina’s even worse than Lauren,” Emma said, grinning across the table at the woman she’d just accused of keeping too many secrets.
“Spend a little time having your life splashed across the front pages of the tabloids and you’ll keep your own counsel, too,” Lauren retorted. “Come on, Emma, my ride just abandoned me. Take me back into town. I think we ought to be long gone before the sexy Mr. Blackhawk returns. He might come to the conclusion we’ve been out here conspiring against him, especially when he hears what Karen has to say about selling the ranch to me. I don’t want to be around when he concludes I’ve stabbed him in the back. He doesn’t seem like the kind of man to take defeat really well.”
Karen hugged her friends goodbye, straightened up the kitchen and put a roast in the oven for dinner. She might as well feed Grady well before she broke the bad—albeit false—news to him.
* * *
It seemed to Karen there was something different about Grady when he got back to the ranch shortly before supper time. He looked relaxed, more at peace in some way she couldn’t quite define. The kiss he brushed across her lips was lighthearted, as was his teasing “Hi, honey, I’m home.”
She regarded him intently. “You certainly seem to be in a good mood.”
“I am,” he said.
And she was about to ruin it, she thought despondently. Oh, well, it had to be done.
But maybe not until after dinner.
“Put your things away. Dinner will be ready in about fifteen minutes.”
“Smells delicious. What are we having?”
“Roast beef.”
He grinned. “Not filet?”
She chuckled at the taunt. “That remains to be seen.”
All during dinner she struggled with herself, trying to force the lie about an impending sale past her lips, but the mood was too special, too sensual, too emotionally charged, to deliberately ruin it. At least that’s what she told herself when she stayed silent right on through dessert and afterward, when she found herself once more in Grady’s arms.
“Make love with me,” he whispered as he held her.
Karen gazed into his eyes, saw the heat and longing there, and couldn’t resist.
His touches were magic, just as they had been before. Her body pulsed and throbbed and burned with each increasingly intimate caress.
And when he entered her, she felt that same astonishing sense of fulfillment even as her senses spun out of control.
In the peaceful aftermath, Grady held her. Tonight there were no tears to spoil the closeness, just the dread of a lie she was determined to tell.
Finally, when their breathing had eased and their bodies had cooled, she dared to broach the subject of the ranch.
“I had an offer on the ranch today.” That much at least was true, which made the words easier to get out. Yet guilt flowed through her when she felt his body go still.
“Oh?”
“Lauren’s interested.”
Grady didn’t seem nearly as shocked by that as she might have expected. Or maybe it was just that he was totally focused on what the news meant for him and his determination to restore the land of his ancestors to Blackhawk control.
“Have you accepted?” he asked, his voice neutral.
“I’m considering it.”
“I see. Mind telling me why you’ll consider her offer and not mine?”
Karen hesitated. This was tricky territory, even trickier than the blatant lie she had just told. He deserved honesty, though, at least about this.
“You know why,” she said.
“Because of Caleb. Even though you know that his animosity toward me wasn’t justified.”
She nodded.
Grady met her gaze, his expression sad but accepting. “I think what you and I have found these past few months is something special, but he’s always going to be between us, isn’t he?”
“No,” she said. “Not Caleb. The land. I’m afraid to trust what you and I have because of the land. I know how badly you want it, and if it were mine alone to give, it would be yours. But it’s mine only because my husband died trying to protect it. I have to consider his feelings.”
For a moment he seemed to be struggling with himself over something, but then his expression hardened.
“So sell it,” he said bitterly. “Get it out from between us. Then we’ll see where we go from there.”
She didn’t know how to interpret his expression or his words. She did know that when he left the bed and the house, her heart went with him.
CHAPTER 14
Grady had struggled to keep a lid on his temper when Karen had made her big announcement about possibly selling the ranch to Lauren. He’d seen straight through the ploy. Maybe Lauren had made an offer on the land, maybe she hadn’t, but Karen had
