Honeymoon With the Rancher (Harlequin Romance)

by Donna Alward

  He laughed, and relief flooded through her though she couldn’t quite imagine why. “No,” he chuckled, “I’m not hiding a mistress of any sort.” He folded his arms. “Would it truly matter if I were?”

  His soft question shattered the silence and she inhaled, held her breath. And then she turned her gaze up to him again and her chest constricted. “Yes,” she murmured. “It would. It would destroy the good opinion I have of you, Tomas.”

  “Good opinion?” His mouth dropped open in surprise and then he shut it again just as quickly.

  She wanted to tell him why but didn’t know how without feeling like an idiot. How did she tell him what it meant for him to pay her the smallest compliment? How it restored her confidence when he wondered how Antoine could have let her get away? And the kiss aside, she had seen the worry and fear on his face as he’d leapt off his horse and come rushing to her side after she’d fallen off Neva. Yes, good opinion.

  And to elaborate would make her look like a girl with a crush—starstruck by her knight in shining armor.

  Sophia noticed a small girl standing on tiptoe a few meters away, her hands on the edge of the bridge. She swung her arm and two coins dropped into the water. When they sank to the bottom, the girl ran off, pigtails bobbing, to clasp her mother’s hand and continue across the bridge.

  “What’s she doing?” Sophia asked, intrigued.

  “Many people stand in this very spot and throw coins in the water,” he said quietly. “They toss them in and make a wish.”

  Once again Sophia went to the edge and looked down. She wondered what the little girl had wished for. Tomas came up behind her. She felt his body close to hers, felt as though every place they nearly touched was alive. “What about you?” she asked quietly, trying to still the sensations coursing through her. “Have you made wishes?”

  He pulled back, putting space between them and she sighed, shaking her hair back over her neck. Why was it she always seemed to ask the very thing that would break the spell?

  She wondered how often he might have stood here in the past. She wondered what he had wished for. Did he believe in wishes at all? Or did he think this was just a tourist trap and a pretty story?

  It took a while for him to answer, but when he did, his voice was low and rough from behind her. “I did, a long time ago.”

  “What did you wish for?”

  Tomas sighed, and moved slowly to stand at the edge of the bridge, looking down into the water. “Things that could never be.”

  Sophia felt the same odd warning slide through her as she’d felt yesterday when he’d been so cryptic during their ride. Tomas was hiding something. He was so reticent, so closed-lipped, she knew it had to be big. She wanted to know, desperately. But what gave her the right to ask? They’d only known each other a few days. It was none of her business.

  “Now you’re going to chide me for holding out on you. For not baring my soul.”

  It was as if he read her mind. Sophia shook her head. “I know when I’m beaten. Getting anything out of you is like getting blood from a stone.”

  “Be careful what you wish for,” he answered, dark tension clouding his voice.

  “I haven’t made a wish yet, so don’t worry.”

  He dug into his pocket and drew out some coins, coming to stand beside her at the edge of the bridge. “Wishes should be happy things. They should be about looking forward.” He held out his hand, offering her the change. “Didn’t you come on this trip to look forward, Sophia?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Then make your wish.”

  There it was, that swirling again, that anticipation of possibilities. His fingertips touched her palm as he gave her the money.

  “I don’t know what to wish for. It’s been a wonderful day with you.” She tilted her head up to look at him. “I’ve kind of enjoyed living in the moment.”

  “I’ve enjoyed it, too,” he admitted. He raised an eyebrow. “Maybe you should wish for better riding skills. I’d like to take you out again this week.”

  “That might be a wise idea.” She laughed lightly, but ended it on a soft sigh. “I needed this vacation badly,” she murmured, watching a duck bobbing on the surface. “I didn’t really know how much. Despite my obvious lack of equestrian prowess, I’m finding I kind of like myself. I haven’t for a while.”

  Tomas leaned closer, putting his free hand on her waist. “You are turning out to be a surprise to me, too. You’re not nearly as annoying as I thought you’d be.”

  Coming from Tomas, that was nearly a declaration. Her heart hammered at his nearness, and she felt herself get swept up in the moment. His lips hovered close and she rose up on her toes, tentatively touching her mouth to his.

  The gentle contact blossomed into something more, something deeper, and Sophia clutched the coins tightly in her palm as her other hand gripped his arm. Behind them a group of boys hooted and clapped. She broke off the kiss, lowering her heels to the ground once more, slightly abashed and affected by the kiss just enough that she couldn’t meet his gaze.

  But that didn’t stop Tomas from leaning forward and murmuring in her ear, “Make a wish, Sophia.”

  She closed her eyes, wished and tossed the coins into the shimmering water.

  “Your turn,” she said, turning away from the circles spiraling out from the coins she’d thrown.

  Tomas shook his head. “No, I’ve made my wishes before. Today is for you to experience.”

  He looked so serious her heart stuttered and she smiled, trying to cajole him out of his somber mood. “Come on. What can it hurt? A few centavos in the river.”

  A dark look shadowed his features and Sophia drew back. “Tomas?”

  He simply shook his head, stepping back, his face an immutable formation of angles and planes.

  What had he wished for that had caused so much pain? She reached out and laid a hand on his arm. It was taut as a band of steel beneath her touch.

  “What is it? Please, Tomas, tell me. Let me help you, like you’ve helped me.”

  “I should not have brought you here,” he murmured. “You and your questions…”

  “But you did bring me here, and it is lovely. There is more to you than you want people to see.” She squeezed the muscle beneath her fingers. “But I see it. I know you are hurting. Does it have something to do with this bridge? Tell me what you wished for.”

  His dark gaze seared her for several seconds. “I wished to forget,” he finally said, grinding out the words like shards of glass. “I wished to forget and now I wish to God I hadn’t.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  TOMAS wished he could bite back the words. What had made him admit such a thing? What was it about Sophia that got around his guard without him expecting it? Her kiss just now had nearly undone him. It had been innocent and sweet and freely given. She’d initiated it, not him. It hadn’t been in anger or fear or any other sort of reactionary emotion, either. She had simply lifted her face like a rising sun and touched her lips to his.

  He’d liked it—too much. So much that his mind had been wiped clean of anything but her until the boys had shouted and brought him crashing back to earth. He wasn’t supposed to like it.

  Dammit, she wasn’t supposed to be able to see so much.

  “Tomas.” Her soft voice saying his name seemed to catch him right in the solar plexus, jamming up his breath. “What are you trying to forget? What has hurt you so much?”

  He had to tell her. Had to tell someone or it would eat away at him like acid. He couldn’t tell Maria or Carlos; he felt guilty enough already. With the changes going on at the estancia, it was as though the past was being erased a little more each day. With every new building and updated amenity he felt Rosa slipping further and further away. He knew Maria would not understand. She would be hurt, knowing he was moving on. And he wouldn’t hurt Maria for the world.

  “You are not the only one with a failed engagement, Sophia,” he said quietly, running his fingers over the edge
of the bridge. Sophia’s lips dropped open and he clarified, “But it wasn’t broken off. My fiancée died.”

  Sophia’s large brown eyes glazed over with tears as she absorbed his words. “Oh, Tomas,” she whispered. “That’s horrible.”

  It had been. It had easily been the worst moment of his life, when the police had brought the news of Rosa’s death. Like a knife to the heart, only the pain never went away.

  “Was she ill?”

  He shook his head. “No. She was mugged in Buenos Aires. The autopsy said the cause of death was blunt force to the head.”

  Sophia’s fingers went to her mouth; he saw them trembling there. Her normally rosy cheeks drained of color. Why were the details so easy to repeat now? It was as though he was talking about another person, another lifetime. “It was three years ago,” he finished.

  “I’m so sorry,” she murmured, taking his hands in hers. “And here I was whining over my situation. Oh Tomas,” she whispered, her voice breaking, “How did you stand it?”

  He spun away, away from the pity in her eyes and the sympathy in her voice. Turned away from the benevolent scene of ducks bobbing away on the water, evidence that the world kept on turning, blithely uninterested in whatever suffering he’d encountered. He had grieved so hard, so completely, that he would have done anything to take away the pain. “Now you know why I came to the bridge. There was a time that all I wanted to do was make the pain go away. To forget all the things that made me hurt.”

  “And you regret that now?”

  He turned back and looked at Sophia, so young and naive. She really had no idea. “I shouldn’t forget. I should be able to remember what she looked like, but sometimes I can’t. It’s like she’s there but blurred, you know? The sound of her voice when she laughed at a joke. The way she moved. Those things are slipping away from me.” He scowled. “Especially when I’m with you.”

  “I make you forget?” Her voice was small.

  “Yes, dammit, you do.”

  Long seconds passed and Tomas realized he’d been breathing fast and hard. He slowed his breaths to normal. He had made it sound as though this was her fault when it wasn’t. “I’m sorry, Sophia. It is not your fault. It is mine.”

  “You don’t need to grieve forever, Tomas. It is okay to move on. To have a life.” She tried to curve her trembling lips into a smile, but they faltered. “To be happy. It doesn’t mean you loved her less.”

  “Perhaps,” he responded, knowing in his head she was right but feeling that heavy, sinking feeling in his heart just the same. “But it feels…”

  “Disloyal to her memory?”

  He nodded, not sure if he was relieved or not that she seemed to understand.

  “Oh, Tomas. You are a good man beneath all your prickles and stings.” Sophia took his hand and led him back to the edge of the bridge. He let himself be guided because he didn’t know what else to do. “Is that why you hide away at the estancia?”

  “At first it was to be close to her…”

  Sophia’s head whipped around to stare at him. Surprise widened her eyes and he realized that, of course, she didn’t know the rest. “Rosa was Maria and Carlos’s daughter,” he clarified.

  He saw the shock ripple across her face, and couldn’t blame her. What would she say if she knew opening the estancia as a guest ranch had been his idea? Or if she knew he had been the financial backer behind it? He had already seen her impression of him change before his eyes as he told her about Rosa.

  “I didn’t see that coming,” she admitted, and his eyes focused on her throat as she swallowed thickly. “So, what, you moved to the estancia after her death? To be close to her family?”

  “They are my family, Sophia. Carlos and Maria are like parents to me. There was nowhere else I wanted to be. But since the fire, with all the changes happening, it doesn’t feel the same. It is not the same place I came to when I was younger. I went home with Miguel and there she was. There they all were. I’ve been trying to hold on to that feeling, but it’s slipping away.”

  “You’re not just grieving for Rosa, then,” Sophia replied softly. “You’re grieving for everything that was and isn’t anymore. You’re grieving for your grief. And you feel awful for wanting to move on with your life. But Tomas…. this is a good thing. Living now doesn’t mean you didn’t love her.”

  “It feels that way.”

  “But it won’t bring her back. I know this is going to sound clichéd, but would she want you to go on hiding out at the estancia, never finding happiness again?”

  The answer was simple. In theory.

  “Why tell me, Tomas? Why now?”

  Indeed. Yes, he’d been increasingly unsettled lately and the only people in the world he could really talk to were the last ones he should speak to about his feelings. “Because I can’t talk to them. And you’re here. And in a few days you’ll be gone and it won’t matter.”

  There was also the fact that there was this bizarre attraction to her, always simmering between them no matter what they were doing. She was bringing out all sorts of needs in him that he’d locked away for a long time. He pressed his lips together. That was more than he wanted her to know.

  “I’m making it more difficult, aren’t I?” Her cheeks pinkened, a becoming flush of roses beneath her deep eyes. “I kissed you just now…”

  How was it that she seemed to keep reading his thoughts? Having her put words to them fanned the flames all the more. “It’s not your fault,” he repeated. “You just make me…”

  “Make you…?” the softly asked question came out with a wobble and he had the insane urge to wrap his arms around her.

  “You make me want things,” he admitted.

  “Want me?” She lifted her chin boldly, but he could see through the gesture to the insecure girl behind it.

  “Yes,” he said, lifting his hand and placing it on her cheek. “Want you.”

  She looked down, biting her lip as if he’d flustered her. “I shouldn’t have kissed you…”

  He wanted to taste her lips so intensely again he knew it had to be a bad thing. “No, you shouldn’t have.”

  “I’m not ready for a fling.”

  Of course she wasn’t. She was on the heels of a broken engagement. He turned away, dropping his hand. “No. Sophia, I would never take advantage of you. Maybe that’s why I told you. I don’t want you to have any illusions of what is between us. Yesterday’s kiss was a mistake.”

  “Of course.”

  The words sounded polite, but he detected a note of hurt behind them. “I didn’t mean to make the afternoon so depressing,” he said, needing to lighten the mood. This was why they needed to keep busy, occupied with other things!

  “No, I’m glad you told me. It explains a lot. And I am sorry for your loss, Tomas. No one should have to endure such an ordeal.”

  “It is over and done,” he replied. “I know it. I sometimes just have a problem being okay with it.” He straightened his shoulders. “Now, let’s shake off this heavy cloud and head back to the estancia.”

  He’d made some arrangements for while they were absent. The fact that the surprise excited him was a little worrying, but he shook it off. It didn’t matter. It wouldn’t matter. Sophia would be gone in a few days. Why shouldn’t he enjoy her company until then?

  Sophia’s senses were whirling as she stood in the centre of her room, sorting through her purchases. Dinner was over and the mess tidied. Now the long evening stretched before her, leaving her too much time to think. Tomas had been engaged to Maria and Carlos’s daughter. He had mentioned Miguel but not Rosa—a telling omission. And to have her taken in such a way…she suddenly realized there was a depth to Tomas that she hadn’t counted on. For a man to close himself away from life as he had at the Vista del Cielo…beneath his tough exterior was a broken heart.

  At first she had thought the swirling sensation she felt every time he was near was just physical. But, after today, she knew it was more. She felt a connection. And
he felt it, too. He must, to trust her with such a confidence. How he must have grieved for the woman he loved. A woman who had grown up right here in this house, she realized. Of course letting go was hard when he was surrounded by reminders of her every day!

  Sophia had just put her purchases away when Tomas showed up at her door. Simply seeing him there made her heart beat a little faster. Something had shifted between them. It had been daring of her to kiss him this afternoon. Maybe a simple kiss was not daring for some women, but it was for her. Taking the initiative was not her style, but there was something about Tomas that tempted her to try new things. She felt safe with him, a feeling she had never anticipated.

  “Come with me. I want to show you something.”

  As his dark eyes watched her, an energy seemed to fill the room and she felt a little thrill. Following the set path had always been comfortable before, but she was beginning to see she’d been hiding behind it, too, the same way Tomas had hidden behind the estancia. Never taking risks. It was time for her to come out of the dark and find out just what Sophia Hollingsworth was made of.

  Then there was the delicious tidbit that Tomas had admitted—he wanted her. She’d been honest—she wasn’t ready for a fling, even though the thought was incredibly tempting. After this afternoon’s shared honesty she felt she could trust him. He would not press her. And he was standing in the doorway looking like a kid on Christmas morning, impossible to resist.

  “Okay, I’ll play. Where are we going?”

  “It’s a surprise. Close your eyes.”

  A surprise? Tomas didn’t seem the type for surprises. The heavy mood that had hung over them earlier had completely dissipated as his eyes danced at her. She closed her lids and felt him take her hand in his, leading her from her room and down the hall. With her eyes shut, she felt the intimacy of their connection running from her fingers straight to…well, straight to the part of her that kept insisting on being attracted to Tomas. It didn’t help that every now and then this lighter side peeked from behind his rough exterior.