Free His by Valentine's Day by Starla Kaye Page A

you and your friends can come up with the money you need. We both know that. But I..." He heaved a sigh and stopped talking.
    She hated that tears burned her eyes. She refused to let him see them and jerked her coat on and stormed toward the front of the stable. For a second she thought he would come after her, but he didn't. She was glad for that. Wasn't she? Yes!
    She strode into the fading snowstorm and toward her house as fast as she could manage. It was time she made serious plans for her future...ones that wouldn't include living or working here. Plans that would take her far, far away from Cade Calloway.

     

Chapter Five

    Three days. Cade had only planned to be gone a few days, like he'd told Shawna. Not that she had been listening to him when he'd told her that. No, she'd been furious with him for being honest enough to tell her they both knew she and her friends could never come up with the ranch's selling price. He'd seen the pain in her eyes before she'd marched proudly out into the snowstorm. It had been like a kick in the gut, to both of them. She'd taken the "just business" comment he'd made wrong. He hadn't meant to hurt her that way, or at all. He'd never run into a problem on a business buy/sell matter before...at least not like this. Not on a personal level. He'd been struggling to figure his way around the mess since the day he'd met Shawna.
    He rubbed at his forehead, at the headache pounding there. Today had been extremely long and complicated. And he was still adjusting to the time zone change here in London. He looked out his hotel room window at the darkened sky still well lit by the city's many lights. He hadn't expected to be back here for a while, but Adam Harrison had become somewhat of a friend on Cade's most recent sell of a small publishing business here. And Adam had requested--practically begged for--his help with some management issues that had come up since the transfer of property. Normally Cade sold a business and never looked back. This time was different. Or maybe he was different now; maybe he had actually learned to care more about the people affected by one of his buy/sell arrangements. Anyway, he was here in London, halfway around the world from where he wanted to be. He needed to get done with this assisting matter and get back to Kansas.
    Cade glanced at his watch and paced his hotel room again. He should be dropping into bed since he was dead tired, but he couldn't get beyond his desperate need to talk to Shawna. The six-hour time difference was playing havoc in his communicating with her. That and she clearly didn't want to talk to him. Damn, she was a stubborn woman. His patience with her attitude was thinning big time. In fact, if he were there, someone's pretty little bottom would be getting a hand applied to it. Avoiding him wasn't helping their situation.
    Finally he just gave up and punched in the ranch's phone number. Even if it was almost three in the morning there, he couldn't wait any longer to try calling her. If he waited a few more hours so that she'd be getting up, he would be far beyond his ability to stay awake here. He didn't want her running out to deal with ranch duties and avoiding him again. So he waited impatiently while the line rang and rang, and rang some more. If she'd just returned one of his messages...
    "Rolling Hills Ranch," Shawna answered sounding groggy. Then she evidently looked at caller ID and grumbled, "You couldn't wait to call until morning?"
    He could tell by the testiness in her voice that she was still upset with him, that she was about to hang up on him. "Do not cut me off! I've been calling for days now and you've ignored all of my messages."
    She yawned. "If I'd looked at the caller ID when I grabbed the phone, I would have ignored you again." She yawned again. "What happened to only being gone for a few days? It's been a week already."
    He was envisioning her looking all sleep rumpled, which he imagined would be sexy as hell. And he