Free That Night With the Rich Rancher by Sara Orwig Page A

and went down the hall to another bathroom.
    * * *
    All the time she showered, Lindsay wondered how much this weekend would change how they treated each other at home. Tony was still Tony, telling her what to do. She hadn’t said anything to him, but she wanted to check his pumps by herself. She wouldn’t put it past him to be bluffing with his invitation to come look. After all, he was a Milan.
    One of her earliest memories had been her grandmother telling her to never trust a Milan. Could she trust Tony now?
    The Tony she had just been with for the past twenty hours was a man she would trust with her life. That thought startled her; it was completely at odds with how she’d been raised. Then again... Had her grandmother just been passing down family opinions that could have gone back generations?
    Thirty minutes later, dressed and ready to go, Lindsay joined Tony in the living room. He came to his feet when she entered, his gaze sweeping over her, making her tingle. To her surprise, reluctance to see the weekend end filled her. After all, she and Tony had always known it wouldn’t—couldn’t—last.
    Even in jeans, boots and a navy Western shirt, Tony looked sexy and handsome. A short while ago, as they’d talked about ranching, she’d felt the old annoyance with him for telling her what she should do. Now, simply looking at him made her heart beat faster.
    She looked down at the red dress she’d worn last night and wore again now. “I have to go back to my hotel in this. It’s four in the afternoon, so I may turn heads,” she said, forcing a grin that never made it fully to her lips.
    He crossed the room to place his hands on her shoulders. “Lindsay, in that dress, you’ll turn heads any hour of the day or night. You’re gorgeous.” He reached out to play with her hair, which fell about her shoulders. “I like your hair down.”
    For some reason she hadn’t put it up when she got ready. She couldn’t say why.
    “Thank you. I’m ready to go. You know what the drive is like back to the ranch. Are you going home today?” She knew he was driving her to her hotel, but wasn’t sure where he was headed after that.
    “No, I have an appointment in Dallas in the morning. Otherwise, I would have pushed harder to go home together.”
    “I see.” She gave one nod. “Well, now we go back to our real lives and the real world. But it was a wonderful, magical weekend that I never, ever expected.”
    “My sentiments exactly,” he said. “I don’t want you to go. I don’t want this to end, but I know it has to and it won’t be the same.”
    “Afraid not,” she agreed with him. “I’m ready. Shall we go?”
    “Yes. But how about one last kiss?” He took her in his arms and he kissed her, hard, as if his kiss was sealing a bond that had been established between them this weekend. His lips were making sure that she would never forget his lovemaking, even though she knew it wouldn’t happen again.
    She kissed him in kind, wanting just as much to make certain he couldn’t forget her, either.
    He raised his head. “How about a picture of the two of us to commemorate the occasion?” he asked, pulling out his phone. “Do you know how few selfies I’ve taken? I think one—with a friend and my horse at a rodeo.”
    She laughed. “I rank right up there with your horse. Wow.”
    He grinned as he held out the phone and took the shot, then he showed it to her. “You’re gorgeous, Lindsay.”
    “Look at that picture the next time you think about dumping trash on the entrance to my ranch.”
    He shook his head. “I’m still telling you that I did not do any such thing. You might have annoyed someone else, you know.”
    Startled, she studied him. “You really mean that?”
    “I really mean it.”
    “If you didn’t do it, then I owe you an apology,” she said, still staring at him. But, even if she had accused him of something he didn’t do, there was bound to have been things he did do. And he still