wasn’t that big on cowboys, drunk or otherwise. Her father, whom she’d never met, had tricked her mother into marriage by pretending to be a prosperous Montana rancher. Her mother didn’t find out the truth until too late. Willie Tanner was a con man and worse, and his “ranch” was a broken-down pig farm, heavily in debt. After eloping with Gwen’s mother, who’d been a minor heiress from Billings, he’d wasted no time cleaning out her bank accounts to pay off some rather nasty creditors—the kind who favored cement overcoats—then disappeared, leaving Gwen’s mother destitute, stranded, estranged from her family, and pregnant. She’d died shortly after Gwen’s birth.
Gwen’s paternal grandmother, Abigail Tanner, had taken in Gwen as an infant. Though she’d long ago turned her back on her no-account son, she’d willingly, lovingly, raised his daughter. One thing Grandmother had drilled into Gwen’s head was not to let any smooth-talking men talk her out of her better judgment—or her bloomers.
“What did I tell you?” Sylvia asked as she sat down to sip her beer, taking a break from the dance floor. “Wall-to-wall cowboys. Are you having fun?”
“Yeah, actually, I am.” She’d received more attention from men that night than she had in her whole life. It might have been the sexy clothes or the dark red lipstick. Or it might have been her attitude. For once in her life she felt strong, confident, powerful. She could do anything!
“You haven’t been dancing,” Sylvia pointed out.
“Dancing’s not really my thing. But I love watching. And I’ve got enough free booze to last a month.” Several eager bucks had sent drinks to Gwen’s table, but she was still nursing the same Shirley Temple she’d started with. She’d volunteered to be the evening’s designated driver.
Sylvia sighed. “What am I going to do with you? Listen, I’ve found a live one, and we want to get out of here. I’ll give you my keys, and you can drive my car home. I’ll get a room at the hotel later and find my way home in the morning.”
Gwen gasped. “You’re leaving with a complete stranger?”
“We aren’t strangers anymore.” Sylvia winked.
Far be it from Gwen to rain on Sylvia’s parade. “All right. But please, be careful.”
“I will. And you—try not being so careful for a change, huh? If you can’t find a guy in this smorgasbord, you’re doomed to a life of spinsterhood.”
That word echoed in Gwen’s mind for a long time. She wasn’t a spinster. That was a stupid word, anyway. She chose to be single.
Didn’t she?
Just then, she spotted a very good-looking man a few tables away. He wasn’t a cowboy, either. In fact, he might as well have been wearing a sign that said, “city boy.” His black hair was short, expertly cut. In his khaki slacks and tailored shirt, he looked more like a businessman of some sort. And, like her, he was on the sidelines, watching the action rather than participating. He appeared to be alone, too.
“Spinster,” Gwen muttered. “I’ll show her spinster.” With a determined toss of her head, she stood, picked up the watery Shirley Temple, and strode to his table.
He glanced over at her as she approached, and she could see that his eyes were blue, a deep, intense hue that seemed to see straight to her core. Her heart jumped unexpectedly.
No turning back now. “Hello. Mind if I sit here?” Her voice sounded like it could have been someone else’s. Where had that B-movie dialogue come from?
He stood and pulled out the chair next to him. “Please.”
She sat down, acutely aware of the man just a few inches from her now. She could feel his body heat, smell a faint whiff of his aftershave.
“I’ve been watching you,” he said. “You’re not comfortable here, are you?”
“It was my friend Sylvia’s idea. We’re celebrating.”
“Celebrating what?”
“A windfall.” She didn’t elaborate. People with money made easy targets. Her mother’s experience had taught her that. “This isn’t your favorite place, either.”
“I was just about to leave.”
“Oh.”
“But now I won’t. Want to dance?”
Adrenaline shot through her. This gorgeous guy was actually responding to her flirtation! “I’d love to.”
Gwen was a terrible dancer, so she was relieved when a slow country song came on as she and her new acquaintance hit the dance floor. Slow dancing didn’t require much skill. She just had to put her arms around the guy and rock slowly back and forth.
His muscles were hard beneath his crisp shirt, and he smelled of soap and starch and that alluring scent of expensive aftershave. Gwen was half in love with him before the song ended.
They kissed after the second slow dance. He tasted faintly of scotch, she remembered. Then he took her to his hotel. He had a suite at the Ramada, one of only two hotels in Roan.
Gwen had never behaved like this, but this night, it felt perfectly natural. They shared few words. Talking didn’t seem to be necessary. She’d connected with Garrett—that was his name—on some elemental level. She wasn’t at all embarrassed when he took her clothes off. Though she was slender, she’d always thought her breasts were too small. But the way Garrett kissed and caressed them, he made her feel they were the most perfect breasts in the world.
All of her felt perfect. She wasn’t a sophisticated lover, but with Garrett she’d felt skillful, confident, sexy. Everything she did was right. Everything he did was perfect.
Gwen wasn’t a virgin. She’d had a brief, secret relationship with a man staying at the boardinghouse one summer when she was nineteen. It was shortly after her grandmother had died, and she’d been struggling with the boardinghouse and desperate for an intimate connection. Instead the experience had turned out painful and awkward. Sex with Garrett, on the other hand, was like dancing a perfect ballet. And for the first time in her life, a man’s caresses had brought her to the pinnacle of pleasure.
They’d slept curled in each other’s arms. In the morning, he’d scrubbed her back in the shower and combed the tangles out of her hair with painstaking gentleness. Then he’d fed her a sumptuous room-service breakfast. But with daylight came harsh reality. She had to get home. Sylvia would want her car back, her boarders would want breakfast. Worst of all, there would be embarrassing questions to answer if she didn’t get home soon.
She’d used Garrett’s elegant fountain pen to scribble her name and phone number on a piece of hotel stationery. Then, with one final, searing kiss goodbye, she’d left him.
He hadn’t called. He’d promised. Then he’d forgotten her.
She’d cried on Sylvia’s shoulders for days. Then she’d found out she was pregnant, and she’d cried for another week. She’d tried to locate Garrett to tell him of his impending fatherhood. But all she had was a first name. He’d told her little about himself, so she had nothing to go on.
Gradually she’d pulled herself together and
