Wiping a sleeve across her face, she sniffed loudly and readjusted the camera bag on her shoulder so she could try again to use her phone. She was tempted to call Brooke just to have a shoulder to cry on while she walked all the way to town, but that didn’t seem like the most expedient plan for getting away from this place and back to Chicago. And the sooner she did that, the better. She needed to be able to fold her arms and blink herself somewhere else now more than ever before.

  She’d almost reached the mailbox at the end of the drive and had finally managed to look up the number for the cab company that had dropped them off after their return from Hawaii when a low rumble registered in her brain. Was it a sound or a feeling or both? Whatever it was reverberated slightly beneath her booted feet and sent her spinning around, afraid she was about to be trampled by a herd of runaway horses.

  Instead, she saw Ryder’s truck barreling toward her, throwing up a cloud of dust large enough to make her think he was being chased by a tornado. With a yip of surprise, certain he was about to run her over, she jumped to the side, arms wheeling as she dropped her camera and bag and fought to stay on her feet. But at the last minute, he stepped on the brakes and brought the pickup to a screeching, shuddering halt.

  Climbing out of the truck, he slammed the door and rounded the hood, marching straight for her. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” he barked, stopping only a couple of feet away.

  Not this again, she thought with a groan. Not when she’d finally managed to calm down enough to breathe through her nose and maintain a semblance of dignity. Picking up her camera and tote, she climbed back onto the driveway and tried not to let her voice quaver when she spoke. “I told you—home.”

  “So that’s it,” he said, shoulders lifting as he parked his hands on his hips and gave her an irritated look of outrage.

  “What do you want from me, Ryder?” The words came out a lot more watery than she’d have liked, tears once again brimming her eyes. “I’m sorry about the money. I tried, really tried, to get it back for you. And if you want, I’ll find a way to send you something to follow through on my promise to invest—payments, maybe. Or I can move to a cheaper condo, take on more work to build up the amount faster.”

  “Is that all you care about?” he demanded. “What about Chynna and the colt you claimed to care so much about? What about what we’ve shared these past few weeks?”

  …

  Ryder hadn’t meant to sound so angry, but dammit, he was. Angry and hurt and so blasted scared to lose her, he was shaking with it.

  Her gaze snapped to his and he saw the confusion in her eyes.

  “I don’t… I’m not…” Monica started, then stopped, shaking her head and letting both her camera and tote drop to the ground. “I don’t understand. I thought you wanted the money. That’s the only reason I was staying here. Now that I can’t get it for you, I thought you’d want me to leave as soon as possible.”

  “Yeah, well…maybe I don’t,” he told her.

  Her breath hitched. He saw her chest freeze, her mouth drop open a fraction. The muscles of her throat convulsed as she swallowed before she asked softly, “What does that mean, exactly?”

  She sounded more fragile than he’d ever known her to be, like the wrong answer might break her. His heart pinched in his chest, because he knew how she felt, even if he’d never meant to be the cause of that pain or defenselessness for her.

  Refusing to give in to the trepidation that filled his gut with broken glass and tightened like barbwire around his throat, he forced himself to tell her what he needed her to know, what he should have told her sooner. “It means you don’t have to leave. I can’t stop you if you want to go, I know that, but I wouldn’t turn you away if you wanted to stay.”

  Ryder held his breath, half hoping she would launch herself into his arms so they could go back to the way things were. No more talk, no more uncertainties, just teasing and laughter and lots of long, wet, bone-melting kisses. If she wanted to return to Chicago, he shouldn’t try to stop her—and he wouldn’t. But damned if he could stomach the idea of a single night alone in his bed without at least trying to keep her with him—not after sharing it with the most beautiful, passionate woman he’d ever had the dumb luck to stumble across.

  He was her hair climber, by God. He’d rescued her from the tower, and now she at least owed him a fairy tale or two of his own.

  A long, tension-filled minute ticked past while she stared at him, not moving so much as an eyelash. Finally, her lips moved enough to ask, “What about the money?”

  “Screw the money,” he half growled. “You don’t have to take off just because there’s no fifty thousand dollars left to keep us together.” Then, in a voice rough with emotion, he said, “Stay. Please.”

  She blinked a few times, as though she wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. “Stay,” she repeated, her own words sounding strangled.

  He nodded, one quick, harsh motion of his head.

  “Why?” she asked softly.

  Dammit! Why did she have to talk so much? Why did she have to have an explanation for everything? Why couldn’t she just hear him say “stay” and stay, for chrissake?

  “Why do I need a reason?” he snapped, frustrated. “Why can’t you just stay because I asked you to?” Shoving his fisted hands into the front pockets of his jeans, he hunched his shoulders and rocked back on his heels. “We were doing just fine before that blasted money came between us again. We were getting along okay.” He raised his eyes. “Weren’t we?”

  Monica nodded, wiping her palms up and down along her outer thighs.

  “So why can’t we go back to the way things were? Why does having the money or not having the money make a damn bit of difference?”

  Licking her lips, she tried to get a grasp on what Ryder was saying, what she was feeling, and what he might mean. She couldn’t stay just because he asked her to, no matter how much she might want to. She had to know that their relationship was about more than money, more than sex, more than jumping into an ill-planned marriage and deciding to stick it out.

  “It makes a difference because…” Taking a deep breath, she steeled herself for what she was about to say. “Because while we were waiting to get the money back, I could tell myself we were just having a fun little fling. Enjoying each other’s company until the check cleared, so to speak. I was taking a vacation from my regular life to play at being a rancher’s wife. And having a good time, too,” she added with a wobbly smile. She toyed nervously with the stitching at the side of her jeans and forced herself to go on. “But without the money…what do I tell myself?”

  He studied her for several long seconds, until she wanted to squirm under his close scrutiny.

  “You could tell yourself that you really are a rancher’s wife,” he said at last, his voice harsh and gravelly, like sandpaper on concrete. The hands came out of his front pockets, and he began to clench and unclench his fingers. “That—money or no money—you belong here more than you belong back there.”

  He inclined his head to the side and she assumed he meant Chicago.

  “There are people here who love you, dammit,” he gritted out. “How can you just pack up and walk away from that?”

  Tears stung behind her eyes and her heart skipped a beat. “I’m not worried about ‘people,’” she almost whispered. “I’m only worried about you.”

  In a low voice, he asked, “What if I told you I love you?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the pain that she was surely opening herself up for. “Would you mean it? Really mean it, not just I-want-you-for-your-money or you’re-a-great-lay love. Real, real love.” Opening her eyes, she fixed them on Ryder’s strong, handsome, beard-stubbled face. “The kind your parents have. The kind I have never known in my entire life. The kind that gets you through tough times and tornadoes and lousy ex-fiancés who run off with your life savings.”

  Damp trails trickled down her face now, but she didn’t care, didn’t bother brushing them away. This was a double-or-nothing situation. She was baring her soul, and she would either win the jackpot, or walk away with nothing but a broken heart.

  She looked at Ryder and thought she saw a sparkle of moisture in his eyes, as well.

  “It’s the real McCoy,” he said, and his voice cracked. “The kind that convinces you to climb castle walls and rescue a drunken princess because there’s just something about her that you can’t ignore. The kind that doesn’t give a rat’s ass if she has fifty thousand dollars to rebuild a broken-down barn or not. The kind that has you thinking it might not be so bad to leave the ranch once in a while and spend a couple months in Chicago.”

  His lip curled with derision on the word Chicago, and Monica laughed. She sniffed, wiped her nose on the sleeve of his shirt, which she hadn’t bothered to take off before racing out of the house, then launched herself across the expanse of dirt road separating them, straight into his open arms. He hugged her to his chest in a vise grip, squeezing the air from her lungs.

  “You have got to curb this impulsive streak running through your blood,” he chastised, holding her close. “Crashing your fiancé’s wedding and marrying the first man you meet to get back at him is one thing. Planning to run off and leave me just because you lost fifty thousand dollars is completely unacceptable.”

  She buried her face against his neck. “I’d have stayed if I knew you wanted me to,” she told him. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

  “Because I didn’t know if you’d want to hear it.”

  She pulled back, staring into his deep blue eyes, so open and vulnerable with his confession. “Why wouldn’t I want to hear that you’d fallen in love with me?” she asked, completely incredulous. Only a man could think that was something a woman wouldn’t want to hear.

  “I’m not exactly a prime catch, sweetheart. The creditors are only about half a step behind me, with no windfall in sight. And I know you have a life back in Chicago. A very important life, with a very important career. I didn’t know if you’d want to spend any more time here than absolutely necessary. But I meant what I said,” he declared solemnly. “I’m willing to spend time with you in Chicago, or travel wherever your job takes you, whenever I can get away from the ranch.”

  She smiled and kissed him full on the mouth, her arms wrapping even more tightly around his neck. When she lifted her head, she said simply, “I love you, Ryder Nash. And it just so happens that I like living on your ranch. I like your barns and your horses and your family. I even like the smell of leather and cows on your clothes when you come in at night. And I most especially love my little Rumpy.”

  When he snorted at the name she was working hard to make stick to her favorite little foal, she tipped her head back and gave him a warning glare. “And for your information, I’ve come up with a way to blend your ranch with my auspicious photography career.”

  “Oh, yeah, what’s that?” he asked, his lips quirking in a grin as he lifted her to dangle an inch or two off the ground.

  “I invited a couple of magazines to do shoots here.”

  His smile fell, amusement replaced by concerned bewilderment. “You did what?”

  “Cheer up,” she said, flipping a little piece of hair away from his face. “They’ll pay at least five thousand dollars per day, probably more, depending on how large a spread they have planned.”

  She continued to toy with his sandy blond hair, soft between her fingertips. “This is a good, good thing,” she assured him. “And since I’ll be the on-sight photographer, I won’t have to go back to Chicago or anywhere else to continue my work. Not very often, at least. Besides, I’ve discovered quite a fondness for livestock photography.”

  Ryder threw his head back and laughed. Then he kissed the tip of her nose before moving on to her cheekbones and mouth. “I love you, my ever-resourceful Mrs. Nash.”

  He molded his mouth to hers, his tongue deftly sweeping away any doubts that might have lingered in her mind. Ryder loved her as no other man ever had. As no other man ever would. And after traveling from city to city for most of her adult life, she was finally, truly home.

  “Rapunzel, darlin’,” he said, raising his head and sweeping a hand behind her knees to lift her into his arms, hero-style. Leaving the truck right where it was, he started toward the house, his long strides eating up the length of the driveway much faster than hers had. “What do you say we explore some of those fairy tale fantasies you seem so fond of?”

  She crossed her wrists behind his neck and swung her legs while he made her feel exactly like the princess he professed her to be. “Which one?”

  “Start at the top of the list and name ’em off.”

  “The Emperor and His New and Quickly Discarded Clothes?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “The Princess and the Penis?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Snow White and the Seven Erogenous Zones?” she suggested as they reached the porch.

  He gave a snort of amusement, opening the screen and carrying her across the threshold. “Uh-huh.”

  Without missing a beat, he kicked the door closed with his booted foot and continued down the hall to the bedroom.

  “Little Red Riding Him?”

  He shot her a devilish grin and winked. “Yep, that’s the one. We’ll start there and work our way through the rest.” Tossing her onto the bed, he followed her down, covering her with his weight and masculine warmth while his fingers went to work removing her clothes. “Then we’ll pick a favorite and start again from the top.”

  Epilogue

  Life isn’t bearable with the opposite sex until it’s unbearable without them.

  This time, they were doing it right.

  They’d set a date—exactly one year from their first wedding day—booked a reception hall, hired a DJ, and let his parents throw them an engagement party.

  Ryder was in a tux and dress shoes—no cowboy boots this time around, at Monica’s insistence. According to his bride, he looked good enough to eat, and not at all like a penguin.

  He decided not to ask about the penguin remark and only hoped she remembered the “good enough to eat” part when it was time to leave for the honeymoon.

  Monica was decked out in a brand new wedding gown. A simple, straight-cut, beaded dress that left her shoulders bare and fell a little too far above her knees for Ryder’s peace of mind. It suited her personality better than the full-length, frilly dress she’d been wearing the first time they met, though, he had to admit.

  And if anyone thought it odd that the couple they had known as Mr. and Mrs. Nash for the past year were back in church, not just renewing their vows, but getting full-out, no-holds-barred remarried, they refrained from comment.

  Shania Twain’s “You’re Still the One” filled the crowded room while the bride and groom swayed back and forth on the hardwood floor in their first dance. Cheek to cheek, Ryder held Monica close and thanked the good Lord again for bringing this woman into his life.

  Tilting her head toward the raised platform where his parents and sister sat at the bridal table, she asked, “Do you think Josie’s having a good time?”

  Her divorce from Matt had been final for only two weeks, and though she was doing an admirable job of keeping her spirits up in front of everyone, his bride seemed to think his sister was still heartbroken over Matt’s betrayal and her short-lived marriage. And though Josie and Monica got along like twins separated at birth, it probably didn’t help that he was very publicly remarrying the woman who had crashed her wedding all those months ago.

  He glanced over her shoulder. “She’s smiling. I think she’s okay.”

  “I think she’ll be better when they find Matt and prosecute him for embezzlement.”

  Monica, as well as several other people Matt fleeced over the years, had gone to the authorities to press charges. The police were now looking for him, but so far he had escaped their clutches by remaining safely out of the country.

  Catching a glimpse of something in his peripheral vision, he touched his wife’s shoulder and said, “Turn around for a minute.”

  Monica swiveled around and he lifted her loose hair over the backs of his hands, careful not to jar the pastel pink miniature roses and baby’s breath that crowned her head.

  “Just as I thought,” he mumbled with amusement.

  She turned back, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “I thought it suited the occasion,” she said simply.

  “Let me guess—something blue, right?”

  “Your mother insisted.”

  “I don’t think a stripe of blue hair up the back of your head was quite what she had in mind.”

  Monica shrugged and then once again leaned into their dance. “She just said I had to have all four things. She didn’t give me specifics.”

  “So what are the rest?” he asked, his hand resting at the small of her back.

  She held up her left hand, which now boasted four rings that together looked rather gaudy. But when he’d insisted on buying her new rings this time around—because, frankly, he wasn’t overly confident in the quality of the first set—Monica had decided to wear them all at once. At least for today.

  “Something old,” she said, pointing to her original wedding band and diamond below the more recent set.

  She placed a hand low on her abdomen and whispered conspiratorially, “Something new.”

  She touched Josie’s strand of pearls at her neck. “Something borrowed.”

  “And something blue,” Ryder concluded of her newly dyed hair.

  Eighteen months ago, he wouldn’t have willingly gone anywhere near a woman who drew wild stripes of color in her hair. Now, nothing about Monica shocked him. Not her hair or tattoo or navel ring. He loved her distinct personality, her touch of wildness.

  At her urging, he was even considering an earring. He hadn’t decided for sure yet, and if he went through with it, it would be only a small stud or hoop, nothing extravagant. And nothing as painful or low on his anatomy as she’d first suggested. The idea of putting a needle through his nipple, belly button, or…lower still sent shivers down his spine.