She fastened her bra over the b.r.e.a.s.t.s that he longed to fondle at least once more. "Yes, I am. We've had a great time, and I don't want to ruin everything by having nastiness arise because you stayed here too long."

Reluctantly Gabe began to dress. "Then at least promise to have dinner with me tonight."

"Sure." She smiled, obviously happy with his invitation. "But it's my treat in exchange for letting me ride your horse."

He looked at her and started to laugh.

"I mean... Oh, you know what I mean."

"You're welcome to ride my horse anytime." He chuckled. "You don't have to buy me dinner, either."

"But I said I would."

"But you also said you'd be forever in my debt." He waggled his eyebrows. "I'm not letting you get off with something easy like dinner. Besides, I invited you, so I'm buying."

"We'll see."

"No, I need to buy, because this dinner invitation comes with strings attached."

"Does it, now?"

He nodded. "Definite strings. I know it's not cool for a guy to ask you to dinner with an ulterior motive, so I'm telling you flat-out. There's nothing ulterior going on. I'm asking you to dinner because I want to have s.e.x afterward. If you have a problem with that, then-"

"A problem?" She smiled. "I'd be upset if you didn't want to do that. I'd think you hadn't enjoyed yourself as much as you seemed to."

He tucked his shirt into his jeans and fastened the b.u.t.ton. "I enjoyed it more."

"Good. But..."

He paused in the act of shoving his belt through the loops. "What?"

"I'm not looking for a permanent boyfriend."

Which was exactly what he wanted to hear. So why wasn't he overjoyed by her statement? Maybe because he was still jacked up on hormones.

His response didn't come as easily as he would have liked, but he knew what it had to be. He'd said the words often enough to other women. "I'm not looking for a permanent girlfriend, either."

"That's a relief. We're not looking for commitment. We're just..." She hesitated, seemingly unwilling to finish the sentence.

He wasn't sure how to finish it, either. There was a common term for what they were to each other, but that term was crude, and what he shared with Morgan wasn't crude.

"I guess we're fun buddies," she said.

"Okay. That works."

"Exactly. We're in it for the fun. If your mother or Jack asks, and they very well might, then tell them that."

Gabe's good humor vanished. "I don't plan on telling them a d.a.m.ned thing."

Her expression became endearingly earnest. "But you should, Gabe. They're worried that I'm trying to get my hooks into you, and you could put their fears to rest."

"That's part of what's bothering me. They seem to have no faith in my judgment."

"All the more reason to get you home first thing this morning. Let's go."

"Wait." He caught her wrist and pulled her back into his arms. "It goes without saying that we won't be making out in your car while it's parked in front of the ranch house."

"No, we won't." She wound her arms around his neck. "That would not be a good idea. Besides, I've outgrown car s.e.x."

"Me, too." He combed her hair back from her face.

"But I'm glad you haven't outgrown barroom s.e.x."

"I have to say it was a first for me."

"How about that? It was a first for me, too." He lowered his head until his mouth almost touched hers.

"So we lost our cherry together."

"Yeah." There was a smile in her voice.

When he kissed her, he felt something new, an emotion that he didn't usually a.s.sociate with a woman he was having s.e.x with. Maybe there was a reason he'd rejected the crude term for their relationship in favor of a more sanitized one.

Although he and Morgan had s.e.xual chemistry to burn and he cherished that, she offered something that was even harder to find. Apparently she wanted to be his friend. With Jack acting like a dictator these days, he could use one.

MORGAN HAD NEVER driven onto Last Chance property. Although she tried to keep her att.i.tude casual, she was awed by the place from the moment she left the main road and pa.s.sed through the ma.s.sive front entrance. In the pearl-gray light of early dawn, two thick lodgepole pines connected by a third horizontal pole reached into the sky, creating a daunting silhouette.

A weathered slab of wood hung from the horizontal pole. The light was dim, but Morgan knew what the sign said, so she had no trouble reading Last Chance Ranch flanked on either end by the interlocking L and C that formed the ranch's brand. She drove across a metal cattle guard onto a dirt road.

"And that's another thing," Gabe said. "This road should have been paved years ago, but Dad didn't want to do it. That probably means it'll never get done. I think Jack wants to turn this place into a shrine to the old man's memory."

"Roads are expensive." Morgan drove a dark green Suzuki Grand Vitara, which had served her well when showing property in the Jackson Hole area. It took the ruts in the dirt road with no problem, but she had to keep her speed down. This was one long-a.s.sed road. She pushed the b.u.t.tons to lower the automatic windows. Might as well enjoy the cool morning air.

The road ran between sage-covered meadows fenced in the Wyoming tradition of buck and pole-two poles angled into the ground to create an X, with cross pieces nestled in the crotch of the X. Not a single light could be seen. In the real estate business, a long entrance road created seclusion and seemed to hint that the house at the end would be well worth the wait.

"You're right. Roads are expensive," Gabe said. "Expensive to put in and expensive to maintain. But that wasn't Dad's objection. He was never a cheap man. He just didn't want gawkers coming onto the property too easily. According to him, a dirt road discouraged people from driving in."

"So why not put a locked gate at the main road?"

"There was my dad's twisted logic. He thought that gate would make it look as if we had something so precious that we had to lock it up and people would sneak around a locked gate out of curiosity. Plus he hated the idea of stopping to get out of his truck to open it. The dirt road worked for him."

Morgan was beginning to feel as if she'd known Jonathan Chance, after all. "But not for you?"

"For one thing, it's h.e.l.l pulling a loaded horse trailer down this road even in good weather. You can imagine the kind of nightmare it becomes once it starts snowing. Heavy rain's not a lot of fun, either."

Morgan had a horrible thought. "Gabe, don't tell me the rollover was on this-"

"No, it wasn't here, thank G.o.d. It happened a good twenty miles from here, on a paved road slick with rain. I was out of town, putting on a cutting-horse demonstration for some 4-H kids down in Cody." He paused.

"Haven't been able to make myself do another one of those 4-H events since."

Morgan reached over and squeezed his knee. "They say the first year is the hardest."

"It wouldn't have to be quite so hard if Jack would ease up."

"Maybe he just needs time." Morgan had been furious with Jack yesterday, but now that she understood him a little better, her anger had ebbed away.

"Or a swift kick in the b.u.t.t. And I might be the guy to give it to him. Now that he's pa.s.sed the big three-oh, he might be getting a little soft."

Morgan doubted it, but she had her mind on other things, like the big hip-roofed barn she'd just driven by, the outbuildings beyond that, and finally, the huge house in front of her. She'd thought of ranch houses as rambling, one-story structures. This one looked more like a two-story ski lodge, or perhaps the fantasy creation of a kid with a deluxe set of Lincoln Logs.

As the car's tires crunched to a stop on the circular gravel driveway, she glanced to her right at the center section of the house with its mammoth front door. Two wings branched out from either side and were angled in a way that reminded her of arms flung open in greeting. A front porch lined with rockers ran the length of the house, and flowers bloomed in the beds on either side of the steps.

Although the log house was immense, the effect was softened by strategic landscape lighting and the homey presence of those rocking chairs. No one would ever call this place cozy, but it was certainly welcoming. Morgan was dying to see the inside, but that wouldn't be happening this morning, and maybe not ever.

She turned to Gabe. "It's gorgeous."

"I know. It represents seventy-three years of effort."

A lump of emotion stuck in her throat. "Gabe, do you know how much I envy you that kind of heritage?"

Leaning over the console, he cradled her face in both hands. "It comes with a price," he said gently. "You envy my heritage, but I envy your freedom." He kissed her softly and released her. "I'll be at your door at six tonight."

"Sounds good."

"It sounds more than good. I'll be counting the minutes." He'd started to climb out of the SUV just as the front door opened.

Sarah Chance, dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, stepped out on the porch. "Gabe?"

"Hi, Mom."

"You'd better get down to the barn. Jack's there with Nick. There's a problem with Doozie."

"Be right there." Gabe turned back to Morgan.

"Doozie's the horse I brought home and she's been a bone of contention ever since. Listen, if this turns into a thing, then I might be a little late tonight, but I'll be there."

"Don't worry about promising anything. You do what you have to in order to preserve the peace."

"I'll do whatever I have to in order to preserve my sanity, which means spending the night in your bed."

"Gabe, not so loud. Your mother might hear you."

"You know what? I kind of hope she does. I'm proud to know you, Morgan O'Connelli." With that he closed the car's pa.s.senger door and gave her a wave before striding off toward the barn.

Morgan was so intent on watching him go that she totally missed seeing Sarah Chance come around the front of the car. When she spoke, she was standing beside the open driver's window, and Morgan jumped.

"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you." Sarah cleared her throat. "But I thought I'd better grab the opportunity while you were here."

Morgan met the older woman's gaze and discovered to her shock that Gabe had Sarah's eyes. The resemblance was disconcerting, considering how much time Morgan had spent totally captured in the net of Gabe's blue eyes. During the parade, Sarah's sungla.s.ses had hidden the resemblance.

"It's obvious that Gabe spent the night with you."

"Yes, he did." Morgan decided there was no harm in a little white lie. "But he wanted to make sure he was back here to do...whatever was necessary this morning." Morgan still wasn't clear on what that was and hoped her vagueness wouldn't hurt Gabe's cause.

"That's good to hear, but I'm not really concerned about that. We're used to having Gabe gone. He's not nearly as attached to this place as the other two. I've braced myself for the day he tells me he wants to live somewhere else."

"I can't imagine wanting to live anywhere else." Once the words were out, Morgan realized she probably shouldn't have said them, especially with the note of longing in her voice.

Sarah was quiet for a moment. "I hope for two things for my sons. One is that they find a woman they can love with all their heart. The second is that the woman returns that love with all her heart."

Morgan wanted to say that she and Gabe were all about fun, not love. But telling that to his mother wasn't quite as easy as she'd imagined.

"The point is," Sarah continued, "I'd hate for anyone to latch onto one of my boys because they fell in love with this." She gestured toward the house and barn.

Maybe honesty was the best policy. "I'm already in love with what you have here. But I'm not an opportunist, and even if I were, Gabe's too smart to fall for somebody who's only using him."

Sarah's eyebrows lifted in a gesture so reminiscent of Gabe that Morgan caught her breath.

"Let me put your mind at ease, Mrs. Chance. I'm a little jealous of the fact that your family has been here for three generations, but I am not in love with your son and he's not in love with me. We're enjoying being together, but we're not serious about each other."

"If you can say that, then you don't fully understand Gabe, and that worries me."

"I beg your pardon?"

"When my son thinks enough of a woman to loan her his horse, it's very serious."

8.

GABE RUBBED a hand over his day-old beard as he headed for the barn. He probably looked like some cowpoke down on his luck, when in fact he'd never felt better in his life. Great s.e.x could do that for a guy.

But he needed to forget about Morgan for now and concentrate on Doozie, the bay mare he'd saved from the auction block a few weeks ago. Her owner, Brad Bennington, had given up on her, convinced that her injuries, which caused her to founder, would cost him more money and time than he wanted to invest.

Gabe knew what would have happened on the auction block. A horse with Doozie's condition would end up at the slaughterhouse, and he wasn't going to let that happen. True, founder was the same thing that had precipitated the death of the great racehorse Barbaro, but Gabe didn't believe Doozie would die. So he'd brought her home to the Last Chance, because the ranch was dedicated to last chances.

The lights were on in the barn as he approached. Butch and Sundance, two dogs Nick had found wandering along the highway, had taken up sentry duty on each side of the barn door. Butch was a mixed breed, mostly boxer, and Sundance looked like a border collie, although chances were he wasn't a purebred, either. Gabe paused briefly to give them each a scratch. If Nick could rescue dogs, then Gabe figured he could rescue a horse.

But Jack hadn't been pleased when Gabe had brought Doozie home. She was hurt, and she wasn't a paint, so Jack wouldn't want to breed her. Gabe had known all that, but when faced with the knowledge that the young mare was destined to become dog food, he hadn't been able to turn away. Doozie had a whole life in front of her, providing his brother Nick could cure her. And Nick was a top-notch vet.

Inside the barn he breathed in the sweet mix of hay and horses. Seeing the place as Morgan might, he had a new appreciation for the old barn, which had been on the property when his Grandpa Archie brought his bride to the ranch. The barn had been through several renovations since then, but much of the original structure remained.

Gabe found himself thinking of how much Morgan would enjoy walking around in here, listening to stories of his grandparents' adventures starting married life in a barn. He wanted to share that with her, but bringing her here would only make her uncomfortable. Jack might naturally a.s.sume Morgan was casing the joint so she could find a way to make a profit from her a.s.sociation with one of the Chance boys. As for his mother, she'd always said that she wanted him to find a woman who loved him beyond all reason, and that wasn't Morgan.