Free The Reluctant Texas Rancher (Harlequin American Romance) by Cathy Gillen Thacker

hard.”
    Liz hugged her great-grandmother and pressed a kiss on her fading red hair. “I’ll ask Travis to go along with me.”
    “Are you sure there’s no spark left between you?” Faye Elizabeth asked suspiciously.
    “I hope there is!” Beaming, Tillie returned the hug, giving Liz an extra affectionate squeeze.
    “Me, too,” Reba said. “And that you keep your real goals firmly in mind.”
    Meaning having a baby and continuing the Cartwright family. Liz’s goals, however, were far different from her mother’s. She wanted to keep her life from becoming messy and emotional. Everything else was secondary.
    “You don’t need to worry about that, Mom,” she told her.
    Whatever Travis was keeping from her was reason enough to concentrate only on representing him.
    Liz found him in the barn. He was tending to two calves that hadn’t been thriving in the field, so had been stabled, along with their mamas, for a few days.
    Hearing her approach, he emerged from the stall, a question in his slate-gray eyes.
    “I just had an email from opposing counsel. They faxed an amended complaint to my office in town.”
    Travis looked as if he had been half expecting the perfectly legal—yet underhanded—tactics of his former law firm. “It can wait until tomorrow morning,” he said with a grimace.
    “Maybe for you,” Liz countered. “I’m not going to lie awake all night wondering what is in it.”
    He exhaled, his frustration with the situation mounting. “In that case I’ll go with you. Just give me a minute to wash up.”
    The ride to town was conducted in silence. Liz sensed Travis had an idea what was in the waiting fax. Her suspicion was confirmed the moment she got a look at the amended complaint.
    Heart sinking, she handed the pages over. “Is this true?” she asked, half in shock, half in dismay.
    The brooding look in his eyes intensified. “I had a relationship with Olympia,” Travis admitted curtly.
    Liz pushed aside the image of him and Olympia getting naked, and the hot flash of jealousy that followed. “A sexual relationship?”
    “Yes.”
    “When she was your client?”
    “Yes.”
    Hence the disclosure agreement he had presented Liz with the evening before. Suddenly, something that had seemed innocent—even thoughtful—at the time, took on a tawdry slant.
    Resentment knotted her gut. A litany of not-so-nice words crowded her mind. “And you chose not to tell me?” Thereby leaving her in the dark, dammit!
    “It wasn’t relevant.”
    “I’m your attorney.” Liz advanced on Travis, temper sizzling. She grabbed the papers from him and slammed them onto her desk, then whirled back to face him. “It’s my job to decide what’s relevant. It’s your job to confide in me—not to keep things from me.”
    His eyes narrowed and a long pause followed. “Why are you so upset?” he asked.
    Because once again Travis had been cutting her out, when he should have been including her.
    Liz vowed to keep her emotional involvement with him to the absolute minimum from that moment on.
    Swallowing, she walked around her desk, and sat down behind it. Clasped her hands together and said in a cool and professional tone, “I pride myself on doing the very best job I can to represent my clients.”
    She paused to let her words sink in.
    Travis folded his big frame into one of the client chairs in front of her desk.
    She continued with a censuring glare. “I was at a big disadvantage this afternoon because I was the only one there who didn’t know what Olympia was threatening you with.”
    Travis shifted into a more comfortable position and propped one ankle on the opposite knee. He rubbed at a spot of distressed leather on his boot. “Not true.” Slowly, deliberately, he lifted his eyes to hers. “Digger and the rest of his crew didn’t know, either.”
    But all the attorneys had! His ex-lover slash client had! Liz gritted her teeth. “You really want to joke at a time like this?”
    His pewter eyes