CHAPTER TWO

      JUDGING FROM THE gobsmacked expression on Carlene’s face, she hadn’t had a clue about Uncle Joe’s decision to give Wynn the ranch. No wonder she’d been so surprised to see him.

      And no wonder there was suddenly fire in her eyes.

      This fire was nothing like the heat from the flirting that’d gone on in the back. Nope. She was pissed off.

      Without saying another word to him, Carlene marched into the house and yanked her phone from her jeans pocket. No doubt to call Joe. But his uncle was only going to tell her what he’d already told Wynn.

      “Joe liked my plans for the place,” Wynn told her while Joe’s line rang. He set the hot chocolate he’d gotten for Carlene on the coffee table. “And he said it was time for me to be the owner now that I’m giving up bull riding.”

      Her mouth didn’t fall open, but it was close. Clearly, she hadn’t known that, either.

      Where the heck were the gossips when you needed them?

      Wynn hadn’t bothered to tell Carlene that little detail about bull riding—or the fact he was returning to Wrangler’s Creek—because he’d figured it would be old news by now. Such old news that he’d half expected to find her packed up and moved out since it was obvious she wanted to avoid him.

      Even though Carlene didn’t put the call on speaker, Wynn was close to her and the house was quiet enough that he could hear Joe’s phone ring and ring. While she was waiting for an answer, Wynn had a look around. The place hadn’t changed at all in the past three years. Actually, it hadn’t changed since he’d moved here as a kid.

      There was something comforting about that.

      The house itself not only had good bones, the furniture and furnishings were suited for a ranch—saddle-brown leather sofa and chairs, his grandmother’s quilt hanging on the wall, the hammered-copper countertops in the adjacent kitchen. While he was continuing to have his look around, he went up the hall to his bedroom, opened the door.

      And Wynn frowned.

      This was a definite change because it was jammed with boxes and stuff. The bed was still there, but someone had turned it into a junk room.

      “What happened here?” he called out.

      There was no answer, so he went back into the living room to find Carlene staring at the phone as if she might crush it in her tight fist. “Joe didn’t answer,” she said. “So I left him a message.”

      Yeah, he was betting she had. And that it wasn’t a friendly How are you doing? message, either. Carlene wanted answers, but he hated to tell her that talking to Joe wasn’t going to change things.

      At least, he hoped not, anyway.

      The papers weren’t final yet. They were on the way to the lawyer here in Wrangler’s Creek, and maybe Carlene wouldn’t put up such a fuss. He also hoped that Joe wouldn’t back down on this deal.

      Because Wynn needed this.

      Actually, he needed a life, one where he could manage the pain from his bull riding injuries and deal with the fact that he was a thirty-year-old has-been.

      “Why is all that stuff in my room?” he asked.

      Her eyes narrowed so he had to guess she didn’t want to jump into a change of subject when the other topic of conversation hadn’t been resolved yet.

      “I’m sure Joe will call you back as soon as he can,” Wynn assured her. Of course, that was bull. Joe was enjoying Florida and had been spending his days fishing and reading. “Now about that stuff in my room.”

      “The boxes belong to me. I moved them here after Joe left. He told me I could live here. I’ve been sleeping in the guestroom, but your room is bigger and has enough space for all my things.”

      Wynn was certain he was now the one with a gobsmacked look on his face. “Joe didn’t mention that to me. I didn’t know you’d moved in.”

      However, his uncle had said that he wanted Carlene to stay on here. Wynn had figured that meant keeping her job, but maybe in Joe’s mind that meant them sharing the ranch, too. That would go over about as well as an erupting volcano in an ice cream parlor.

      “What happened to your house?” he asked. Because, last he’d heard, she was still living in town.

      “Sold it. Mila Banchini, who owns the bookstore, bought it. She’s already moved in.”

      Hell. That meant she didn’t have a place to go. Not an immediate one, anyway. Wynn didn’t especially mind her staying there, but Carlene wouldn’t put up with that. Yeah, she’d come close to kissing him when he was flirting with her, but no way would she want him around to jab at the memories of their breakup.

      Memories of when they hadn’t been broken up, either.

      In her mind, the latter was probably worse—since some of those memories had been pretty darn sweet. No matter how bad the problems had gotten between Carlene and him, the sex had been off-the-charts good. There was zero chance she’d want to stir things up with him again.