He reached into her suitcase to lift out a dress. The action revealed her neatly folded camisoles and tap pants.

Their eyes met.

Even though she’d sold most of her other clothes, she’d kept the lingerie as one of her few remaining luxuries.

Jake obviously remembered the items.

He’d used to talk about the satiny smoothness of them, the way they kept the warmth of her body, how they smelled of her skin.

Heat swamped her.

Jake picked up her favorite pale pink camisole in his work-roughened hands. She remembered how those hands had felt, caressing her through the silk. Hot. Strong. Demanding yet infinitely gentle as he peeled the flimsy top off her body.

He raised an eyebrow. “It’ll be more convincing if I take a few of these and toss them around my room,” he said in that whiskey-soft voice. “One on the floor, another draped over the edge of my bed...”

My bed. Her brain stuck on the words.

Taylor wondered why the phrase mattered, why it bothered her. She didn’t want it to be their bed anymore, didn’t want their marriage to be real again.

She finally knew better than to try to get love from someone who couldn’t give it. Someone who, like her father and his precious business deals, or her mother and her endless quest for beauty and social status, couldn’t pay attention long enough to find out who their daughter really was. Someone who was married to his damned ranch, and had only cared for his wife when it was convenient.

Or when he wanted physical gratification.

Though earthshaking, sex with Jake had always been a poor substitute for the deeper sharing and affection she’d craved, a fact he would never understand.

No, she definitely didn’t want Jake back. She only wanted to complete their business deal. To make a fair wage for her week’s work, and to prove she wasn’t a selfish brat anymore.

Maybe she’d acted badly last summer, but she’d changed. She’d realized her mistakes, one of which had been going after Jake in the first place. Now she was ready to release the past, redeem herself and move on.

Taylor reached for the camisole. “I don’t think so, Jake.” As he watched, she painstakingly refolded it the way she’d learned during her brief stint in a clothing store last fall, before she’d been fired and had looked for work as a waitress. She laid it in a drawer. “You just keep your door closed down the hall. I’ll make sure this room looks vacant. We’ll be fine.”

She quickly unpacked the rest of her things, then tucked the suitcase and luggage rack in the back of the closet. All her belongings had fit into one of the two dressers. The room looked untouched.

“Just like a hotel room,” she muttered.

“Keep it that way.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, saluting his broad back as he strode from the room.

An hour later she joined him for a sumptuous dinner cooked by Irma. They sat at opposite ends of the long table, not close together as they had last summer. The iron candelabra partially obscured their views of each other, preventing any feeling of intimacy.

Which was fine with her. She wanted to eat, not stare adoringly into her husband’s eyes.

They dined in silence until halfway through dessert, when someone pounded on the front door.

As Irma went to answer it Jake murmured, “Must be Hankins, stopping by to say hello. Ready to face the music?”

Taylor glanced down at the diamond wedding set on her left hand. The gems sparkled in the flickering candlelight. Simple and elegant, they looked just right. As if they belonged on her hand.

It had been hard to put them back on. Hard to wear them again considering everything they represented. Hope. Failure.

She remembered Jake’s proposal, when he’d slipped the engagement ring on her finger at midnight on the stern deck of a cruise ship. Remembered their wedding, and the confident touch of his fingers as he put his wedding band on her. Remembered ripping the rings off her finger and throwing them at him right before she stormed off the ranch.

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