Wandering outside the barn, he walked toward the corral, where Maria and several others were helping a group of five disabled children ride horses, one at a time.

The children appeared to suffer a range of disabilities, some physical, some mental, and some both. He stared at Maria as she comforted a young boy. She hugged and cuddled him against her full breast as she murmured in his ear.

Lucky kid, Geoffrey thought. Bloody hell, he was sick. Jealous of a little kid. Shaking his head at himself, he continued to watch. As the lesson drew to a close, however, he went to the barn and got a soda for himself from the small refrigerator. On impulse, he pulled out an extra and met Maria as she walked toward the barn.

“Care for a refreshing beverage?” he asked her, offering her the can. “I thought you might be hot.”

She studied him for a moment as if she hadn’t quite made up her mind about him. “Gracias,” she said. “Very nice of you. Was there something you wanted?”

“Not particularly,” he said. “I don’t suppose this place has any musical instruments hidden anywhere?”

She frowned thoughtfully. “I may have seen a piano in one of the rooms upstairs in the house. I don’t know if it’s playable.”

“Would you mind showing me where it is?”

“You play?” she asked in surprise.

He nodded. “It’s a passion. Much more so than my day job, but family duty calls and all that rubbish.”

She smiled. “Sounds like you don’t want to answer the call of family duty?”

“You’re very perceptive. Now, the piano?”

“This way,” she said and guided him back to the house and upstairs. “I’m surprised you’re not spending the afternoon with Miss Granger.”

“I helped her clean the cabins this morning,” he said.

She murmured something in Spanish. “She needs help. She is so slow.”

“Better slow than not at all, yes?” he said.

She shrugged as she led him to the end of the hall and opened the door.

“Pardon me, but I must ask, how did you end up on this ranch, of all places? You’re so beautiful you could have been a model,” he said.

She stopped and stared at him.

He cleared his throat, feeling like a fool. “Well, I’m sure I’m not the first man to tell you that you’re beautiful.”

A trace of vulnerability deepened her eyes for an instant. She took a deep breath, which drew his attention to her prominent breasts. “Of course not,” she said. “But gracias.” She cleared her throat and pointed inside the room. “The piano.”

Geoffrey strode inside and swept the cover off an old spinet. It would probably sound like hell, he thought, but he ran his fingers over the keys anyway. “Needs to be tuned,” he said, continuing up the keyboard. He found a broken key that wouldn’t play. “Do you think Mrs. Dawson would mind terribly if I called a professional tuner? I would bear the cost.”

“I could ask her for you.”

“Thank you,” he said, taking her hand and lifting it to his lips. “You are truly a goddess.”

She met his gaze for a long moment as if she couldn’t decide how to take him. “I can’t tell if you are loco or just strange.”

He smiled. “Why can’t I be both?”

Her mouth stretched into a smile that showed her white teeth against that gorgeous tanned skin, and then she gave a husky laugh that somehow managed to grab him by the heart and balls at the same time. God, what a woman.

That night around ten o’clock, Lori debated walking down to the barn again. She didn’t want Jackson to think she was going down there just to see him. And truthfully, she wasn’t. Even though the thought of riding a horse nearly made her break out in hives, the quiet of the barn calmed her.

Walking to the window of her small bedroom, she looked out at the clear night sky. Without city-light glare, the stars shone like diamonds on a blanket of indigo. The moon was a few days away from full but lit up the landscape below almost like a floodlight.

Sighing, she wrapped her arms around her waist, giving herself a hug. Soon she would need to give Geoffrey an answer to his proposal. That answer should be yes, and then she and he would begin their six-year sentence.

Chapter Twelve

The thought of her impending marital sentence made her want to vault out of her second-story window. Lori shook her head. The comfy room suddenly felt too small, her skin too tight. Was she doing the right thing by getting married? By the time she turned thirty, what kind of woman would she be? Would an empty marriage change her? Would she become cynical?

Desperate to escape her thoughts, she gave in to her urge to go to the barn. She would take an apple this time to give one of the horses, to prove that she wasn’t expecting Jackson to be there.

The apples looked so juicy and inviting in the bowl that she grabbed two and nibbled one along the way. The dry grass crunched under her feet. Lori inhaled deeply. She loved it here. No need for a new dress for every event. She wasn’t cooped up in her house trying not to think about her father or mother too much. Glancing down at her manicure, or lack thereof, she laughed. Her polish was chipped, her nails breaking, and her hands looked three hundred years old from being in water so much the last couple of days.

She took another bite of her apple and smiled. Who cared? Slowing down as she approached the barn, she walked inside and found it dark and quiet. Jackson didn’t appear to be here. Brushing off a twinge of disappointment, she took a few more steps and the tight feeling in her shoulders eased.

“I wondered if you were going to come,” Jackson said from behind her.

Startled, Lori stifled a shriek and whirled around, breathless. “Did you have to scare me half to death?” she whispered. “Is it too much to ask you to give me a little warning if you’re going to come up behind me in the dark?”

“Sorry,” he said, but his tone said he was much more amused than apologetic.

She took a deep breath, then another, then turned away from him. “Yeah, whatever.”

“Looks like you dropped your apple,” he said.

“Good thing I brought another one,” she said, glancing inside each stall at the resting horses. She already knew who would be awake.

“Is that for me?”

“Absolutely not,” she said. “It’s for Rowdy.” She stopped for a moment and listened. Sure enough, she heard the horse’s steps at the other end of the barn. Smiling, she walked toward his stall.

“You’re getting more brave all the time,” he said. “Soon enough, you’ll be ready to ride.”

A shiver of fear immediately rushed through her. “Ha, ha. Feeding is one thing. Riding is another.”

“When do you think you’ll be ready?”

“I don’t know. No time soon,” she said and turned to face him. “What’s it to you?”

He shrugged. “I guess I think that if you got so much pleasure from riding before, it would be good if you could do it again.”

“Except I don’t get pleasure from it anymore.”

“You don’t know that, do you?” he asked.

She opened her mouth, then shut it. “I know I break into a cold sweat just thinking about getting back on a horse again. For now, my riding days are over.”

“Unless you decide differently,” he said.

“What do you mean decide something differently? You think I’m overreacting. You think I’m a wuss, don’t you? You try breaking your pelvis and legs and doing a year of therapy and we’ll talk, okay?” She turned away, resenting Jackson because he was destroying her Zen experience in the barn.

His hand on her shoulder stopped her. “I didn’t say that. I don’t think you’re a wuss. I think you’re brave to come within a few feet of horses. This may sound crazy, but I’d like to help you.”