Free The Bridal Path: Ashley by Sherryl Woods Page B

the room. In the kitchen, she filled a glass with water and drank every cooling drop. She barely resisted the urge to splash some on her overheated face.
    When she’d salvaged her composure, she returned to the living room with Dillon’s bottle of beer and her coffee. If he thought he needed his wits about him, she wanted a large dose of caffeine to bolster her own.
    Dillon had set up the old board that had belonged to her grandfather. As a child, before this chess set had been moved from Three-Stars to the cabin, she had loved to touch the smooth ivory pieces. When her father had finally agreed to teach her the game, she had felt so grown-up.
    “Why the smile?” Dillon asked.
    “I was just remembering the first time Daddy played chess with me. I felt as if it were some sort of rite of passage.”
    “How old were you?”
    “Eight, maybe. Until then I had been so envious of Dani and Sara. Daddy played chess with them practically every evening after dinner. First one and then the other. It never took him long to beat them.”
    “I suppose you vowed then and there that you’d be the first one to beat him.”
    “Of course.”
    “Did you?”
    “Just once.” She chuckled at the memory of her father’s expression when she’d suggested the stakes. “We bet my future. If I won, I got to go to New York and he’d stake me for the first year. If I lost, I promised to go off to some suitable college and get some disgustingly practical degree the same way Sara and Dani had.”
    Dillon whistled. “You must have been awfully confident.”
    She shook her head. “No, desperate, really. I knew if I didn’t do something totally outrageous, he’d never believe I was serious about going. He’d bully me until I wound up with a degree in accounting or computer science so I could keep the ranch’s books for him.”
    Dillon shook his head. “You and your sister must be big on outrageous bets.”
    At her quizzical look, he explained, “I heard about Sara betting Jake that she could beat him in bronc riding to win the ranch. Obviously neither of you would flinch at the role of the dice in Vegas, no matter how much you had on the table.”
    Ashley grinned. “If the stakes aren’t big enough, what’s the point? Besides, don’t let Jake kid you. He was betting as much for Sara as he was for the ranch.”
    “Remind me not to gamble on anything major with any of you. So, how long did it take you to win the chess match with your father?”
    “Two days,” she recalled. “We played until after midnight, until Mother insisted we go to bed because I had school in the morning. We finished the next night. He had me checked three or four times, scared the daylights out of me, but I managed to wriggle out and stay in the game. When I finally said checkmate, I’m not sure which of us was more stunned.”
    “What did he say? Do you remember?”
    “Sure. He asked me if I wanted to make it the best two out of three,” she said, laughing. “He never gave up.”
    “But he gave you your stake and let you go without any more arguments, didn’t he?”
    “Without more arguments? You must be kidding. But, yes, he let me go and he financed that first year. He grumbled all the time, though.”
    “Just to keep you on your toes,” Dillon assured her. “He always told me that getting you set up in New York was the best investment he ever made because it had made you happy. He told me that a man’s greatest accomplishment was the happiness of his children. If he achieved that, then he’d done okay.”
    Holding a pawn in his hand to make his first move, Dillon fixed his gaze on her. “Moving to New York, becoming a model has made you happy, hasn’t it?”
    Ashley shrugged and evaded that penetrating stare. “Every job has its ups and downs, but on the whole, yes. I’ve been happy.”
    “How come you can’t look me straight in the eyes when you say that?” he asked.
    She forced her gaze to meet his. “Do I need to say it again to