Free Montana Mavericks Weddings by Diana Palmer

glanced at her, approving the picture she made in the Atlanta Braves cap he’d loaned her. She didn’t like Western hats, because she could neverfind one that fit her properly. She liked bibbed caps, like this one.
    â€œAll you need is a hound dog and a shotgun,” he murmured. “And a truck.”
    She made a face at him. “I look fine, thanks.” Her eyes slid over his lean, fit body in the saddle with admiration and pure pleasure. “You always did look at home on a horse.”
    â€œIt’s where I’d rather be, most of the time, not stuck in some boardroom with spreadsheets between my hands.”
    â€œYou have your finger in a lot of pies,” she recalled.
    He nodded, absently watching the lazy circling flight of a hawk overhead. “The ranch would be enough for most men. I sit on the board of three corporations, head a committee for the national cattlemen’s lobby and chair my own companies. It keeps me running.” He glanced back at her. “Lately I think it keeps me running too much.”
    She averted her gaze to the wide pommel of her Western saddle. “I thought you were running from me.”
    He chuckled. “Maybe I was.”
    â€œNot anymore?” she asked and tried not to sound hopeful.
    He drew the reins more securely through his gloved fingers. He averted his face so that she couldn’t see it. “I haven’t decided yet.”
    â€œI won’t marry Troy, in case you thought you could change my mind,” she said firmly.
    â€œYou don’t suit him the way you are,” he said quietly. “But I feel responsible for the way you broke up. Maybe I shouldn’t have come back until the wedding.”
    Her hand caught the pommel and held it, hard.
    He saw her fingers clench, saw her stiff stance, and reined in his own mount. “Talk to me!”
    She reined in, but she didn’t look at him. She stared off in the distance at the buttes that seemed to run along forever against the blue sky. “If I’d married Troy, it would have been the biggest mistake either of us ever made. You don’t marry one man to work another one out of your system. I may not be mature, but at least I know that. I would have cheated Troy every day I lived with him. Eventually he might have hated me for it.”
    â€œLove can be learned.”
    She turned and looked straight at him. “No, it can’t. Not where there’s no spark of interest to begin with and nothing in common except being born in the same town. He liked football games and I liked fishing. That’s pretty basic.”
    He leaned forward in the saddle and pulled his Stetson farther over his eyes. “I like fishing myself. I haven’t been in years, of course.”
    â€œWe used to go, when Dad was alive.” She smiled, because the memory wasn’t so painful now. “I’d siton the bank with a cane pole and try my best to catch something.”
    â€œYou were patient enough,” he agreed. “But you wouldn’t use the right kind of bait.”
    She glared at him. “I am not torturing worms and spring lizards…!”
    â€œDough balls for crappie,” he indicated. “And artificial flies for trout fishing. You needed a good rod and reel, not a cane pole, but Whit was always afraid you’d hook yourself in the hand or the eye. I knew better, but I wouldn’t argue with him.”
    â€œHe loved you,” she said, glancing back toward the distant river.
    â€œHe loved you, too. If he’d had ten kids, I think you’d still have come first. You were unique, Abby, even at the age of ten.”
    â€œYou liked me then.”
    â€œI like you now,” he said, and his voice was deeper, softer.
    She wouldn’t look at him. What she felt was too near the surface. “Billy said the boys were chasing strays. Know where to look?”
    â€œI think so. Come on.”
    He led the way down a long