Jennifer Greene - One Tiny Miracle - Branded with his Baby / The Baby Bump / An Accidental Family

“Oh, I can loosen up—when I need to,” he added.

She laughed. “Well, if you put a third less cattle on this particular range, then you could keep the flowers,” she suggested.

Normally, Quint would have been quick to shoot down such a suggestion, calling it ridiculous and wasteful. But something about the pleasure she was gleaning from the cactus roses made him happy, made him reconsider even the smallest things around him.

“I’ll think about that,” he said.

Halfway through the ride to Chillicothe, they stopped near a deep arroyo. A shallow amount of water covered the rocky bottom while desert willows and twisted juniper grew at precarious angles from its loamy banks.

They rode down into the mini canyon, then dismounted and led the horses to the water’s edge. The day had grown exceptionally warm and while the horses drank deeply, Quint shared his canteen with Maura.

Once the animals had their fill of water, they led them over to the bank and tethered the reins loosely around a willow limb.

After they were certain the horses were secured, Quint said, “I see a nice flat rock over there. Let’s sit a few minutes before we head on to Chillicothe.”

“Sounds good to me,” she agreed. “Right now my legs feel like two pieces of rubber.”

He offered his arm to her. “Here. You’d better hang on to me. Just in case you stumble.”

“Thanks.” She wrapped a hand around his forearm, then quickly moved her clutch higher toward his elbow. “This is your cut arm,” she explained. “I don’t want to injure it again.”

She could have torn the cut wide open again and Quint probably wouldn’t have noticed. Just having her touching him again, walking close by his side, her body brushing against his was enough to send his libido into overdrive.

“Was my grandfather okay with you being gone from Apache Wells today?” Quint asked as he helped her get seated on the big boulder.

Smiling contentedly, she stretched her legs out in front of her. “He was more than okay. He was very happy.”

He eased down beside her on the rock. “Hmmph. That’s not surprising,” he admitted. “Abe thinks I should show more interest in women. And he gets very disgusted with me when I don’t.”

Sighing, she looked up toward the sky. What had started out as nothing but bright blue sky this morning was now filled with fluffy white clouds.

“I know the feeling. Since my divorce, my mother thinks I should be out searching daily for another man.” She shook her head. “She’s been married to my father for nearly forty years. She has no idea how scary it would be without him.”

Quint cast a curious glance her way. “Is it scary for you to be without your ex-husband?”

Her brows arched with faint surprise, she looked at him. “No. I know how to take care of myself. I just meant that it’s scary to think about dating again. I guess—after Gilbert I don’t trust men,” she said, then swiftly shook her head. “That didn’t exactly come out the way it should have. What I was trying to say is that I don’t trust myself to pick the right man.”

Oh, Lord, there had been so many times he’d felt that very same way, he thought. Choosing Holly had been one of the worst mistakes he’d ever made. And though Holly had done the cheating and the leaving, he still considered the whole affair as his mistake.

It had taken Quint quite a while to finally understand and admit to himself that he’d been blind and young where Holly had been concerned. He’d not been mature or wise enough to see that she’d been wrong for him in the first place.

Picking up a few pieces of gravel, he began to toss the tiny pebbles toward the pool of water. “You probably wouldn’t want to tell me what happened to your marriage, would you?”

Even though he could only see her profile, it was enough to tell him that her expression had become shuttered.

“I wouldn’t mind,” she said, then glancing at him, her lips twisted sourly. “Gilbert married me for my money. I didn’t know that at first. In fact, I didn’t know it with certainty until the very end of our marriage. You see, he was a great actor.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Maybe I should start from the first to explain,” she told him. “I’d been working at a clinic in Alamogordo when I first met Gil. We dated for about four months before I finally decided to accept his marriage proposal. Which was impulsive for me. Up until I met Gil I was very cautious about my relationships with men. But he’d come along at a time when I wanted to get on with my life and he’d been so attentive, so considerate of my needs and wants. He kept reassuring me that he wasn’t interested in my money and I foolishly believed him. After all, he earned a good salary of his own and he never asked me for anything that was connected to finances.”

“You’re a rich woman, Maura. You never had suspicions about his motives?” His brows pulled together. “Damn, you must have been a trusting soul.”

She groaned with regret. “That’s what I meant about being a good actor. Gil was the sort that could make a person believe the sun was shining in the middle of a rainstorm. Even Mother believed he was sincere. But Daddy totally disapproved of him. He described Gil as slicker than an oil pit. At that time I thought Daddy was just being overly protective with his daughter. But unfortunately, it turned out that Daddy was right and I was the naive one. I believed Gil truly loved me.”

He caught the sound of self-deprecation in her voice and was amazed at how much that sound depicted his own feelings.

“So how did you learn he’d married you for your money? Weren’t there signs on the wall that you could have read?”

Maura answered ruefully, “There was nothing about Gil that appeared out of line. Until after we were married. And even then I didn’t think it suspicious when he wanted to use our money—or technically you could call it my money—to buy luxury items like vehicles and boats and exotic vacations. He always reasoned the purchases away by insisting he wanted me to have the best of things. Because he loved me. Because I worked so hard as a nurse that I deserved them.” Full of shame, she looked at him. “I couldn’t see through him, Quint. I wanted to believe that he loved me so much he merely wanted to spoil me with gifts. I didn’t want to consider, even for a moment, that he was in the marriage for ulterior reasons. But as time went on I couldn’t ignore his lavish spending. Then finally I started asking myself if he was really buying these things for himself and using me as an excuse.”

“How did you discover the truth?” he asked gently.

She let out a long sigh. “It all happened over the course of two or three years,” she told him. “But the turning point began when I wanted to get pregnant and have a child.”

Struck by that, he turned toward her. “He didn’t want children?”

Shaking her head, she said, “Gil’s job had him traveling at least three or four days out of the week, sometimes more. We both agreed that wasn’t conducive to raising a family. So I promised to wait and he promised to put in for a desk job that would allow him to stay home. But year after year began to pass and everything stayed the same. He always came up with excuses as to why he couldn’t change jobs within the company.”

His expression stern, he said, “Maybe he resented the fact that you were working at a career you liked while you expected him to change jobs? What did he think about you working?”

“He did resent me asking him to change—but I didn’t find out about that until—” She paused, then went on bitterly, “Well, until later. But as for me working, he was all for it. My job kept me occupied and out of his way. So that he’d be free to do his own thing.”