She giggled like a little girl. “That’s why we talk about it so long. We want it to be dead and done with when we finish talking.”

“Then talk, and let’s get it in the grave. I’m a damn fine listener,” he said.

“In the beginning, I thought he was perfect. He was thoughtful and kind, and his daddy had a ranch, so we had lots in common. We’d been dating about three months when he wanted us to move in together, but I didn’t want to commit to that. Looking back, I must’ve realized something wasn’t right with the relationship even then.”

She kept talking, and Sawyer listened. He didn’t nod at the right times and pat her hand, but his eyes said that he was really paying attention. If he’d picked up a little notepad and started to write, she would have sworn he’d been a therapist in another life.

“Evidently, he figured if I was close enough, he could wear me down to do what he wanted. That was probably why his father offered me a job on his ranch. I’d been living with my grandparents and helping out on the ranch, but then they died and we found out that the bank owned the ranch, or at least ninety percent of it. Grandpa had been putting extra mortgages on it for years to keep it running, and it had to be sold at auction to pay the bank. I was out of a job.”

“I’m sorry,” Sawyer said.

“I had a little tiny trailer out behind the bunkhouse, and my jobs varied from exercising horses to helping haul hay or anything else that needed done. We had this big fight six months ago about him being so spoiled and about an old girlfriend who showed up on the scene, and the whole relationship came unglued. She was in his league, which I definitely was not. She worked in her daddy’s oil company but never got out into the real business of drilling.”

“He cheated on you?” Sawyer asked.

“I don’t know if he did or didn’t, but he started dating her a week after I left and went to another job on a ranch a hundred miles away. When that ranch sold a few weeks ago I called Aunt Gladys.”

Sawyer squeezed her hand. “You aren’t stupid, Jill. You saw it coming and got your heart ready for it.”

“I hope that’s what it is, and I’m not hard-hearted, hardheaded, and coldhearted to boot,” she said.

“Did he ever mention marriage?” Sawyer asked.

She shook her head. “No, and I’m glad he didn’t. I might have said yes.”

“Regrets?”

“Not a single one. If what we had didn’t work, then marriage would have been a big mistake. But I haven’t had the nerve to get involved with anyone since him. There are no regrets, not even when I’m right in the middle of this damn feud. Which reminds me, I will get even with them.”

“I’ve got three pistols. I can shoot with two at once if you can handle one and that sawed-off shotgun you seem to be partial to,” he said.

Like always, his wit put her in a good mood and made her laugh.

“I’ll do some practicing, and I bet we could take out a bunch of those varmints before Sheriff Orville arrived with his doughnuts,” she said.

“Which reminds me.” He covered a yawn with his hand. “I’m hungry.”

“After two sandwiches?”

“That was a long time ago. Taking a nap is hard work. I’ll make spaghetti for supper if you’ll put a pan of brownies in the oven for dessert.”

She cut her eyes up to catch his gaze. “And while we make supper, you will tell me your story, right? Or have you talked it to death with your cousin Finn or your mama?”

“Oh, honey, I pouted and whined worse than a little girl when it happened, nearly two years ago, and it’s a wonder either one of my cousins who was with me at the time will even talk to me.” He pushed the covers back, pulled on a clean pair of socks, and stomped his feet down into boots.

She felt better immediately. Any tough old cowboy who’d been hurt bad enough to cry wouldn’t be ready for a relationship any more than she was.

* * *

Sawyer set an iron skillet on the stove and turned on the flame under it. While that heated, he filled a pot with water, added salt and a splash of cooking oil, and set it on another burner to boil. Hamburger sizzled when he tossed a pound into the skillet. Jill whipped up flour and sugar and cocoa together in a big bowl while he pulled out another pan for his special sauce. None of that canned shit for Sawyer; no, sir, he made his own marinara sauce, starting with real tomatoes.

“Okay, role reversal. I’m the therapist. You get to talk now,” she said.

“To death?” he asked.

She nodded. “All the way to the grave.”

“She and I’d gone to school together since kindergarten. We went to both our junior and senior proms together and dated all the way through college. We got engaged, but she didn’t want to rush into marriage. She wanted the big, perfect wedding with all the bells and whistles, and her parents couldn’t pay for something that elaborate, so we saved our money. We even had a joint checking account, and when it hit a certain number, we were going to start planning the wedding. We were almost there when an opportunity to go on a cattle drive came up. She told me to take the month and go on. She would be busy checking out venues for the wedding,” he said.

“Venues?”

“You know. Places that specialize in that shit. Hell, I didn’t care if we got married in the middle of a pasture, but I wanted her to be happy.”

“You don’t strike me as a man who’d want all that,” Jill said.

He grinned. “See there, we’ve known each other only a couple of weeks, and you can already tell that about me.”

“You were gone a whole month?”

He nodded.

“It happened at the end of the drive. We didn’t have phones, so she couldn’t call me until the end. When I called her, I got the news. She’d met a man at a party from Pennsyl-damned-vania, decided that she was in love with him, and eloped with the fool.”

“After making you wait for years for the big foo-rah with all the bells and whistles? Damn, Sawyer. I’d have killed them both and sworn to St. Peter that they committed suicide.”

He laughed as he shoved spaghetti into boiling water. “I considered it. Yes, ma’am, I damn sure did. But I wasn’t about to let her know that she’d broken my heart, so I went home and pretended to be happy, and I never talked about it again until today. Well, I did mention that she’d come home to Comfort, Texas, divorced and lookin’ my way, to Finn when I showed up on his doorstep at Christmas.”

“What about the savings account for the big wedding?” she asked.

“It went with her when she eloped.”

“Did she apologize for taking it?”

“Hell, no! She said that it was for her wedding, and therefore, it was her money. And, honey, I did not tell anyone that part of the story. Not even my mama or Finn knows that I was that big of a fool,” he answered.

“It was her loss, Sawyer. I bet there are days when she wishes she’d made a different choice.”

He shook his head. “Maybe. If she does, that’s her problem. Trust is what you build any kind of relationship on.”

“And you don’t do second chances?” Jill asked.

He added the browned meat to the marinara sauce. “Darlin’, there ain’t enough duct tape in the world to fix a stupid cowboy who’d get mixed up with that again. Besides, I’ve moved on.”

A blast of cold air preceded Gladys into the bunkhouse. When she reached the kitchen, her hands were on her hips and her lips were pursed so thin that they almost disappeared into the wrinkles.

“I’ve tried to call both of you since early this morning. Don’t you have enough sense to pick up your phones?” she fussed.

“Something wrong?” Sawyer asked.

“You hungry? We’re having spaghetti, and brownies for dessert,” Jill said.

“Yes, I’m hungry, and, no, nothing is wrong on the ranch, but I did go to church this morning, after all. It was too damn cold to go anywhere else, and I’ve been trying to call both your phones all day.”