Michelle Celmer - Honeymoon with the Rancher / Nanny Next Door - Honeymoon with the Rancher / Nanny Next Door

It reminded her of the rolling land she’d seen once when she had gone to Alberta for a student conference. As the bus had driven them from Calgary to Banff National Park, they’d passed rolling land like this, dotted with round bales of hay, horses and cattle. The estancia was a taste of that cowboy culture with a twist. There were no Stetsons and spurs here, but when Sophia looked over at Tomas, his brown eyes gleaming beneath his gaucho campero, she realized that some allures translated through language and location.

“It’s gorgeous,” she admitted, always aware of the animal beneath her, ready to adjust the tension of the reins if she needed to. “It’s so open and free. Wild and a little intimidating.”

Tomas got a little wrinkle in his brow. “You surprise me, Sophia. I expected more of a city-girl perspective from you.”

“There are many things you don’t know about me, Tomas,” she remarked, pleased when the wrinkle got a little deeper. It was encouraging, knowing she had the ability to throw him a little off balance too. “You can be anything you want to be out here, can’t you? There are no limits.”

She saw him swallow and look away. “That’s how I feel about it too. It is not so much frightening, but that there is a vastness to respect, si? I never knew what I was missing until I made friends with Miguel and he invited me to visit. The pampas … it is in my soul.” He looked back at her, his gaze sharp and assessing. “Maybe being here all the time has made me forget that. It is good to see it through your eyes again.”

“Then why don’t you look happy?”

Sophia kept a firm grip on the reins as she watched Tomas’s face. For a moment she thought he was going to say something, and then a muscle ticked in his jaw and she knew the moment had passed.

“This Miguel—he is Carlos and Maria’s son?”

He nodded. “We became friends in university. An unlikely pair. Me from the city and him from the pampas.”

Tomas laughed, but Sophia heard sadness behind it. “You weren’t happy?”

“Maria and Carlos welcomed me like I was family. They were determined that Miguel have a better life. They might have been bitter about being poor, but instead they were just happy.”

“And it isn’t like that in your family?”

He laughed, but it sounded a bit forced. “No.”

Sophia relaxed more in the saddle now, getting used to the shape and feel of it. “After she divorced my father, my mother was always very aware of the distinction of money … and the importance of opportunity. Hence my engagement to Antoine. A lawyer turned politician, full of money and ambition and the promise of power. He was everything she wanted in a son-in-law.” In a flash of clarity, Sophia realized that her mother had wanted for her what she’d never quite had for herself. Sophia blinked, staring over the waving pampas grass, feeling some of her resentment fade as understanding dawned. “Mother just wanted security for me. When we announced our engagement, she was in heaven.”

“And were you? In heaven?”

She thought back to the day she’d started working on Antoine’s campaign staff. “I was dazzled for about thirty seconds. And then I was just practical. Antoine had a lot to offer. And he was charming and connected. He treated me well and I fancied myself in love with him, I suppose. We skated along and after a suitable amount of time he proposed. I would have a good life and he’d have a good wife for the campaign trail.”

“Sounds passionate,” he remarked dryly.

It hadn’t been, and Sophia hoped she wasn’t blushing. In this day and age it seemed unbelievable that in two years of dating and being engaged, she and Antoine had never slept together. Something had always held Sophia back. At the time she’d thought it sensible and cautious, considering how stories exploded through the news about the private lives of public people. Looking back now, though, she wondered if there hadn’t been more to her decision she hadn’t considered, if she hadn’t put Antoine off for a bigger reason that even she hadn’t understood. Looking at Tomas, feeling the thrill that zapped through her at the mere sight of him, she was beginning to see a glimmer of her reason. She’d overlooked an important ingredient—chemistry.

“Not exactly,” she replied, staring out at the waving grasses. She’d blush again if she looked at Tomas. She was twenty-five years old and still a virgin. There was no way on earth she could say that.

“So, he was someone to keep you in shoes and handbags?” He tipped the brim of his hat back a little, his mischievous gaze settling on her face.

“Absolutely. More than that, it was stability.” Something had changed between them. There was no malice in his accusation. She knew he was teasing, and she welcomed it. A teasing Tomas was far preferable to a grouchy one, even if his teasing did hit rather close to home at times. It was easier to take than the stares of disapproval. “Like Carlos and Maria, my mother was poor. My grandmother was a war bride from England and life on a Canadian farm wasn’t all she’d dreamt it would be. She eventually divorced my grandfather. My mother fell into what she called the same trap, and she and my father split up when I was eight. Mom didn’t handle poverty with the grace and humour of your friends, Tomas. She was alone. She was the one who made sure I had the opportunities and schooling and met all the right people.”

Tomas nudged his mount forward, keeping the pace at a steady walk. “So you came here to throw it in your ex’s face.”

Had she? Perhaps in a way, but the trip had been far more about her than it had been about Antoine. “If I had wanted to throw it in his face, I would have gone to the media and given them all the details. It wasn’t necessary. Calling off the wedding was damaging enough. Even without making an official statement, I had reporters in my face. It is big news when a high-profile party member is embroiled in a scandal—even if it’s not quite clear what the scandal is.” She angled him a wry smile and he smiled back.

“You’re tougher than I thought,” Tomas admitted. “Maybe I underestimated you, Sophia Hollingsworth.”

“Maybe you did. But the real reason I came was because I was looking for someone.”

He turned his head towards her again. “Who?”

A lump formed in Sophia’s throat as she gripped the reins. The horse perked up at the feel of her hands through the leather.

“Me,” she replied, and nudged the mare along and down the path leading to the creek.

TOMAS followed her, his eyes trained on her back as it swayed gently with the motion of the horse. She had taken the initiative and started down the path before him, rather than follow behind. There was definitely more to Sophia than he thought. More than the designer shoes and air of supremacy she’d put on yesterday, or the panic she’d exhibited this morning during the spider episode. She was not experienced with horses. He’d known it from the start and had wanted to push her, test her. Not in a dangerous sort of way, after all he’d given her Neva, the gentlest mare in the stable. It was his job to gauge someone’s experience and give them a proper mount. But he’d wanted to shake her up a bit. He’d nearly expected protests when she’d seen the gaucho saddle. But she hadn’t said a single word. Just mounted and followed him.

She’d shown some pluck, and he liked that.

Maybe they had more in common than he’d thought. The thought niggled. He didn’t want to find common ground. Maybe they had both felt pushed into a life of appearances. Tomas had lived that way once. For his father, money and status were everything. The biggest mistake of his life was going along with it as long as he had. He was far happier here, at Vista del Cielo.