How does one deliver such news?
She should have planned better. She should have rehearsed what she might say, practiced how to...lead up to it. Because she wasn’t leading up to it and the longer she stalled, the worse it was going to be when she finally delivered the truth.
The drive out to his ranch was a quiet one. He wasn’t a man who felt it necessary to fill every silence with words. Even with her nerves on edge from all she had yet to say, she appreciated that about him. He was good with silence. At peace with it.
There were so many things she liked about him. Too many. Her response to him was distressingly positive on more than one level. She found him much too attractive. It made her feel...all turned around somehow.
Maybe she really shouldn’t have rushed into this. Her mother and father had urged her to hire a private investigator to check Preston out before she approached him. They’d seen no reason why she had to head straight for Montana after the funeral.
But she’d had other ideas. She’d agreed to hire the investigator, but she’d also decided to come straightaway to meet him. In the end, it was going to have to be her decision anyway. She didn’t want to dawdle over it, growing more and more attached to Ben as he grew more attached to her.
Better to get moving on what needed doing, to...get it over with.
She was a good judge of character and so far Preston had done nothing to raise any red flags with her. On the contrary, he seemed to her a solid, trustworthy man. A responsible man. When she’d asked the chatty motel owner about him, the woman had said he was gruff and not an easy man to know, that he’d only gotten more withdrawn after a “disappointment in love” two years before. Belle had wanted to ask the woman for details about that “disappointment.”
But she hadn’t. It would have felt too much like gossiping. Still, after what Mrs. Seabuck had said about him, she’d worried he would be hard to know.
And then she’d met him and found him much too easy to talk to. He hadn’t been gruff or withdrawn in the least, not with her anyway.
She could find no excuse to keep the truth from him. She needed to follow through on her dear friend’s final request.
Anne had wanted it this way....
Anne.
Just thinking her name brought a fresh surge of pain. Her friend had been gone for only ten days. Maybe she should have listened to her parents, waited for the investigator’s report at least.
All she really wanted was to keep Ben with her, to raise him as her own.
But that wasn’t to be. In the end, she was honor bound to carry through and do what Anne requested.
How to get started, though? How to get the all-important words out of her mouth?
Dear Lord, she still didn’t know.
It was snowing lightly, the white flakes flying at the windshield out of the darkness. So beautiful. So cold.
The land was bare and rolling with a silvery glow about it. Staggered, leaning fences lined the slopes to either side of the two-lane highway. Farther out, she could see the dark shapes of evergreens. The sky was endless—cloudy overhead, but clear far in the distance. On the crests of the mountain ridges way ahead, beneath the lowering dark clouds, she could see a band of cobalt studded with stars.
“Here we are,” Preston said. Neither of them had spoken for several minutes. He turned the four-door pickup truck onto a smaller road. The lights of Marcus’s SUV beamed in through the rear window as the bodyguard swung in behind them.
Thick evergreens, several rows of them on either side, lined the curving road. “Ponderosa pines,” he said. “They make a good windbreak.”
The snow had stopped. They rode between the thick stands of dark trees. And then the road opened up. There was a rustic arched gate with a sign: McCade Ranch. Beyond the gate, she saw barns and sheds, pastures and corrals, the land rolling in the distance. Farther out, those craggy peaks poked into the sky.
There were two houses facing off across a wide yard and circular driveway from each other. They were both two-story, of wood and natural stone, the smaller house seeming almost a miniature of the larger one. There were lights on in both houses. Nearer the barn, she saw another house, more rustic, like a cabin. There were lights on inside that one, too.
Preston parked in front of the largest house. Marcus pulled in behind him and was at her door, opening it for her, before Preston could get there.
She got out and went to meet Preston as he came around the front of the pickup. “Marcus will need to go in first, if that’s all right? To...have a look around.”
Preston shrugged. “Whatever it takes.” He turned to the bodyguard. “Go ahead. It’s not locked.” Marcus went up the steps and disappeared inside. Preston offered his arm and she took it. They proceeded up the steps at a slower pace. “So...do we wait out here until he gives the okay?”
She felt her cheeks redden. Really, all these security protocols did become tiresome. “It should be only a minute or two. And the good news is, once he gives the all clear, if you ever invite me back, he won’t insist on doing this again.”
“You sure?” Blue eyes teased.
“I promise.” Her gaze drifted to his mouth. It was a fine mouth, firm and yet well-shaped. She wondered what it might feel like pressed to hers—which was a completely unacceptable and inappropriate thing to be wondering.
She was not going to kiss this man. She hardly knew this man. This evening was not about kisses and she desperately needed to remember that.
“Don’t look now, but here comes my father.” Preston’s gaze had shifted. He was looking out across the front yard. Which meant maybe he hadn’t seen her staring at his lips—she hoped. “Whatever he says, don’t believe a word of it.”
She turned to look. A tall, rangy white-haired man with a thick, walrus-worthy moustache came striding toward them dressed in a pair of jeans that had seen better days and one of those waffle-weave shirts that looked like it doubled as his pajamas. He had bushy gray brows and a definite gleam in his eyes.
“Preston,” he said, his voice deep and rumbling and full of good humor. “Where’s your manners? You bring a lady home, you know I need to meet her. It’s only right I give her warning about you.” The old guy’s mustache twitched. He gave Belle a wink. “I’m Silas. The charming half of the family.” He offered a leathery hand.
Belle took it. “Arabella. Please call me Belle.”
He enclosed her hand between both of his. His gray eyes twinkled down at her. “I heard about you. They say you’re a princess....”
“Back it down a notch, Dad,” Preston muttered dryly.
The door opened and Marcus emerged. “All clear, ma’am.”
Silas patted her hand before letting it go. “A bodyguard. I can tell by that thing in his ear. And the lack of any facial expression whatsoever.”
Preston appeared to be suppressing a groan. “Why don’t we go in?” He gestured at the open door.
“Don’t
