Geoffrey suddenly seemed to realize that he’d practically drooled over another woman in front of the woman to whom he’d just proposed. He grimaced. “Bloody hell. Well, you’re very well stacked, also,” he said. “Very well stacked. Better than Oxford. You have some kind of enormous library here in the States. What is it?”

“Library of Congress,” Lori said.

“Exactly,” he said with a firm nod. “You’re stacked better than the Library of Congress.”

“Thank you,” she said. “We still need to clean the last cabin.”

“Right-o. Lead on.”

That evening, Lori read another letter from her mother as usual before she went to bed, but her mind kept wandering to the prospect of marrying Geoffrey. After thirty minutes, she gave up, got dressed, and headed for the barn.

Did she really want to do this? Could she really go through with a business marriage? She thought of her sisters and their happy and passionate marriages. Maybe this was a weird twist-of-fate payoff. Since they’d had the tough upbringings, they were due love happily-ever-after. If the flip side were true, since she’d had the cushy childhood, she wouldn’t get the love connection.

It was terribly naive to think all her secret wishes would come true. And when she thought about it, if she got everything she wanted, she’d probably be exactly what Jackson had thought she was-a spoiled brat.

She wandered inside the darkened wooden building and inhaled deeply, wanting to recapture the way she had felt before the accident. Back then, there had been something peaceful about the barn at night. The horses rested easily. It was almost like watching a baby sleep, she thought as she looked into Lady’s stall.

She heard footsteps behind her and felt her heart kick a little as Jackson came into view. He was such a man. A man’s man. Strong, no-nonsense, sexy. The last description stopped her. Sexy? He was just different, she told herself, because he wasn’t falling all over himself to be with her. If she was attracted to him, it was just some sort of sick thing about wanting something she couldn’t have. But something had changed between them since they’d kissed. She couldn’t look at him without being aware of him as a man.

“Is this becoming a habit?”

She shrugged, leaning against the stall door. “There are worse habits.”

“I thought you’d be spending the evening with the English lord,” he said, standing beside her.

“Duke,” she corrected. “I spent a good part of the day with him,” she said.

“He must be very interested if he was willing to drive down here to see you.”

“I’m sure he is. I’m loaded and can solve most of his financial problems,” she said.

She felt his gaze on her. “You want to expound on that?”

“Not really,” she said with a breezy smile and moved toward the next stall. “I came here for the peace and serenity of the barn at night. Don’t feel you need to stay.”

He gave a rough laugh. “Dismissing me already?” he asked, joining her. “Are you sure you want to do that? I have some sugar in my pocket,” he said in a seductive voice.

She whipped her head around to meet his gaze, and then she was unable to stop herself from looking at his pocket. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard it called that before.”

He laughed again, this time more loudly. “Sugar cubes,” he said. “Get your mind out of the gutter, sweetheart.”

She scowled, but he ignored her, moving farther into the barn. “Let’s see who is awake,” he said.

“Probably Rowdy,” she said, curious.

“Peace is peaceful as usual,” he said. He walked a few steps farther and there was a sound of a hoof on the floor. Seconds later, Rowdy poked his head out of his stall door. “Looks like you were right. You want to give him a sugar cube?”

Lori immediately felt herself stiffen with fear. The dark feeling circled around and inside her, sucking away her breath and nerve. She took a careful breath and tried to appear nonchalant. “That’s okay. You brought the treat. You can give it.”

She moved closer, though, and watched as Jackson stretched his hand out flat for the horse. Rowdy politely took the sugar cube with his mouth instead of his teeth.

Jackson glanced at her. “You sure you don’t want to give him one? I have more.”

She considered the offer and felt her palms immediately go damp. It wasn’t riding, she reminded herself. It was just a damn sugar cube. She took a deep breath. “Okay.”

“Come here,” he said and put the cube into her open palm. He slid his arm around her back, and Lori felt a sliver of tension leave her body. Willing herself to remain calm, she tentatively lifted her hand toward Rowdy.

When he nodded his head and whinnied, she stiffened but kept her hand steady. She watched as the horse moved his super-soft lips over her hand and took the sugar cube.

She looked at Jackson and couldn’t help smiling. “I’d forgotten that their mouths feel like velvet.”

“Yeah, velvet,” he said, but he was looking at her mouth.

She felt as if she were going up the down elevator. She met his gaze and another crackle of electricity snapped between them. Was it just her? Was it some kind of masochistic tendency inside her that drove her toward him? Because he clearly didn’t think much of her.

Lowering her gaze to grab her equilibrium, she bit her lip. “Thanks for sharing your sugar,” she said, hoping she bothered him at least a fraction as much as he bothered her.

Geoffrey was bored out of his mind. He joined Lori to help clean the cabins and tried to engage in conversation, but she seemed distracted. After lunch, Lori announced her plans to muck stalls, and he bailed. She hadn’t accepted his proposal, and he was getting dishpan hands from his cleaning chores.

Wandering outside the barn, he walked toward the corral, where Maria and several others were helping a group of five disabled children ride horses, one at a time.

The children appeared to suffer a range of disabilities, some physical, some mental, and some both. He stared at Maria as she comforted a young boy. She hugged and cuddled him against her full breast as she murmured in his ear.

Lucky kid, Geoffrey thought. Bloody hell, he was sick. Jealous of a little kid. Shaking his head at himself, he continued to watch. As the lesson drew to a close, however, he went to the barn and got a soda for himself from the small refrigerator. On impulse, he pulled out an extra and met Maria as she walked toward the barn.

“Care for a refreshing beverage?” he asked her, offering her the can. “I thought you might be hot.”

She studied him for a moment as if she hadn’t quite made up her mind about him. “Gracias,” she said. “Very nice of you. Was there something you wanted?”

“Not particularly,” he said. “I don’t suppose this place has any musical instruments hidden anywhere?”

She frowned thoughtfully. “I may have seen a piano in one of the rooms upstairs in the house. I don’t know if it’s playable.”

“Would you mind showing me where it is?”

“You play?” she asked in surprise.

He nodded. “It’s a passion. Much more so than my day job, but family duty calls and all that rubbish.”

She smiled. “Sounds like you don’t want to answer the call of family duty?”

“You’re very perceptive. Now, the piano?”

“This way,” she said and guided him back to the house and upstairs. “I’m surprised you’re not spending the afternoon with Miss Granger.”

“I helped her clean the cabins this morning,” he said.

She murmured something in Spanish. “She needs help. She is so slow.”

“Better slow than not at all, yes?” he said.

She shrugged as she led him to the end of the hall and opened the door.

“Pardon me, but I must ask, how did you end up on this ranch, of all places? You’re so beautiful you could have been a model,” he said.

She stopped and stared at him.

He cleared his throat, feeling like a fool. “Well, I’m sure I’m not the first man to tell you that you’re beautiful.”

A trace of vulnerability deepened her eyes for an instant. She took a deep breath, which drew his attention to her prominent breasts. “Of course not,” she said. “But gracias.” She cleared her throat and pointed inside the room. “The piano.”

Geoffrey strode inside and swept the cover off an old spinet. It would probably sound like hell, he thought, but he ran his fingers over the keys anyway. “Needs to be tuned,” he said, continuing up the keyboard. He found a broken key that wouldn’t play. “Do you think Mrs. Dawson would mind terribly if I called a professional tuner? I would bear the cost.”

“I could ask her for you.”

“Thank you,” he said, taking her hand and lifting it to his lips. “You are truly a goddess.”

She met his gaze for a long moment as if she couldn’t decide how to take him. “I can’t tell if you are loco or just strange.”

He smiled. “Why can’t I be both?”

Her mouth stretched into a smile that showed her white teeth against that gorgeous tanned skin, and then she gave a husky laugh that somehow managed to grab him by the heart and balls at the same time. God, what a woman.

That night around ten o’clock, Lori debated walking down to the barn again. She didn’t want Jackson to think she was going down there just to see him. And truthfully, she wasn’t. Even though the thought of riding a horse nearly made her break out in hives, the quiet of the barn calmed her.

Walking to the window of her small bedroom, she looked out at the clear night sky. Without city-light glare, the stars shone like diamonds on a blanket of indigo. The moon was a few days away from full but lit up the landscape below almost like a floodlight.

Sighing, she wrapped her arms around her waist, giving herself a hug. Soon she would need to give Geoffrey an answer to his proposal. That answer should be yes, and then she and he would begin their six-year sentence.