Ryder felt like he’d been poleaxed. At the sight of her golden shoulders against the creamy sheets, her dark hair loose and long, he immediately forgot the idea of pizza as a hunger of a different kind gnawed at him.

“Willa, I’m in love with you.”

The words were out of his mouth before he could call them back, but her nervous expression softened immediately.

“You beat me to it, Ryder. I was going to tell you first.”

He dropped the towel, and she caught an intriguing glimpse of lean muscles and that masculine part of him she was so curious about before he pulled back the sheet and climbed into bed with her. She shivered as the cool air brushed over her skin, but Ryder didn’t give her time to feel anything else but excitement. He whispered sweet, ticklish things into her ear and proved just how clever his broad hands were as they caressed every part of her, kissing her all the while until she was limp and breathless with need.

As they were poised for completion, Ryder met her eyes. “Say it for me. Please?”

“I love you, Ryder,” she breathed as he slid home.

His breath was warm on her neck as he whispered, “I love you, too, Willa.” And then they gave each other a glimpse of heaven.

* * *

Willa woke slowly, gradually aware of aches in her body that she’d never experienced before as she stretched. But she woke up smiling, immediately remembering the incredible night she and Ryder had shared. He’d made her feel so loved, so precious, and the feeling was almost overwhelming in its intensity. Inside and out, Willa felt like she was absolutely glowing. And then she noticed that, once again, the sun was shining through the curtains across a bed that was empty except for her and the crumpled blankets. She’d overslept. For the second time during her marriage. She never overslept!

Sitting up quickly, she checked the clock. It was already after nine. Before she could jump up, the bedroom door opened, and Ryder, his cheeks still scruffy with a night’s growth of stubble, eased in with a tray in his hands.

“Morning, sunshine,” he grinned. “How are you feeling?

“Late,” she grumbled. “I cannot believe I overslept again.”

“Oh, that was my fault.” He set the tray he carried down next to her, and the smell of French toast drifted toward her. She hadn’t had French toast in ages, and her mouth automatically watered. There were two plates on the tray stacked high, plus two glasses of orange juice and a dish of strawberries. “I figured you could use a little extra sleep this morning since I . . . kept you up so late last night.”

She couldn’t help it. She immediately bristled. “Ryder—”

He popped a strawberry in her mouth. “Don’t worry, I already talked to Brodie. Everything’s under control.”

She chewed the tart, delicious berry and swallowed. “You can’t just decide—”

This time he stopped her protest with a kiss. He’d obviously snuck a few strawberries himself before bringing up the tray because he tasted like summer sunshine and hot male. Her knees went weak right along with the protests she had planned to make.

“Come on, Willa,” Ryder asked softly, brushing her hair back with one gentle hand to her cheek. “Just go with it, okay? Give us a day to just spend with each other.”

One pleading look from his deep blue eyes, and she couldn’t think of any reason she should refuse him. “One day,” she agreed finally, picking up a fork. What could one day hurt?

Breakfast quickly turned playful when Ryder insisted that they feed each other. It became more serious as Ryder “accidentally” dripped syrup on Willa and insisted on cleaning it up . . . with his tongue. The French toast was soon forgotten and things got even stickier after that, so, of course, the two of them had to shower. They ended up using another hour of their morning and all of the hot water.

“You’re going to kill me, wife,” Ryder groaned, falling back on the bare mattress they’d stripped after their shower, clad only in a big green bath towel that gaped open, showing one well-muscled thigh. Willa sat on the bedroom chair across from him, not even embarrassed by her own nakedness, as she toweled her hair dry. “I can’t believe I married such an insatiable woman.”

“I blame you,” she teased. “You were the one that showed me what I’d been missing. Now you have to deal with the consequences. As a matter of fact,” she purred, putting down the brush. “I think you’re going to have to deal with them right now, all over again.” She dropped her towel on the floor and stalked toward him, a wicked gleam in her eye.

“I guess if I have to,” Ryder replied, splaying his arms across the bed, smiling widely. “Come and get me.”

Willa pounced.

* * *

Ryder decided he’d been right. Life with Willa would never be boring. As he drove them toward home, his headlights cutting across the dark roads, he snuck a glance at her. She was sleeping in the passenger’s seat, her face as innocent as a child’s.

They’d spent the day playing like children, once they’d managed to leave the house. He couldn’t believe it, since she could see the darned thing from her backyard, but Willa hadn’t been to Mount Rushmore since her grandmother had taken her. That had been almost twenty years before, when she was only four, and of course, she didn’t remember any of it.

He’d insisted that they visit Mount Rushmore that day, pretending to be tourists from Idaho. Ryder would be Barry, and Willa would be his wife, Bernice. Looking at him as if he were crazy, Willa agreed but immediately jumped into the spirit of the silly game, posing for dozens of selfies, peppering the tour guides with questions, and basically blending in with the other tourists, finally standing in awe of the massive monument

Afterward, they browsed through the information center and bookstore, where Willa insisted on picking out a stack of books on area history for him. They had dinner at Carvers Café—pot roast for Willa and buffalo stew for Ryder, since he wasn’t personally acquainted with any buffalo—and ice cream before buying each other goofy souvenirs in the gift shop and heading home. Willa’s high spirits and enthusiasm for everything they’d done were such a contrast to her normal all-business, sober attitude that Ryder felt like he’d spent the afternoon with a completely different person.

And now the day was over. He dreaded the alarm going off at five the next morning. He didn’t want to go back to the serious Willa. He wanted to spend time getting to know her flirty, playful side, finding out what she was like without all of the baggage that came along with being a ranch owner. Ryder wasn’t even sure Willa knew what kind of person she was—she’d been saddled under responsibilities for so long, she’d probably never had a chance to find out.

But maybe, Ryder mused, glancing again at his sleeping wife, it was time to see if he could do something about it.

* * *

Her alarm chirped obnoxiously at five a.m., and as she rolled over to shut it off, for the first time, Willa wanted to unplug the clock and pull the blankets back over her head. Yesterday had been so unreal—she honestly couldn’t remember the last time she’d had so much fun—and she wanted to repeat the whole thing over again. But, Willa reminded herself with a sigh, work on the Circle G never ended, and that meant that the boss couldn’t afford to slow down either.

She started to get up, but an arm sneaked around her waist, and she found herself pulled back against a hard-male chest. “Where are you going?” Ryder asked, his voice still gravelly with sleep.

“Time to get up,” she murmured, snuggling back against him.

“New rule,” Ryder replied, kissing her just below her ear. “We get up at five, but we don’t get out of bed until at least quarter after.”

“You’re a bad influence, Mr. Pearce. But make it five thirty, and I think I can get behind that rule,” Willa agreed breathlessly as Ryder’s clever fingers began to explore.

* * *

Ryder waited impatiently all morning for Willa to be safely closeted away, updating records on the computer, before he cornered Brodie coming out of one of the stalls in the barn.

“Hey,” Brodie grinned. “You guys have a good time yesterday?”

“We did.” Ryder fell into step beside the other man. “As a matter of fact, that’s kind of what I want to talk to you about.”

“Man, I don’t want to hear any of the lovey-dovey details. I haven’t had a date in six months.”

“I wouldn’t share any details with you, anyway,” Ryder laughed. “Unless you want the name of a good matchmaker. But I really do need to talk to you. You have an office or anything we could hang out in for a while?”

“Sure.” Brodie stopped long enough to wash his hands and then led Ryder up the staircase built against the back wall of the barn to the loft, half of which held hay and the other half a modern apartment and office. “Come on in,” he offered, gesturing toward a comfortably beat-up chair across from a desk piled high with paper. “Pop?” He opened the door to a sleek little mini-fridge and grabbed a Coca-Cola.

“Soda, you mean? Yeah, thanks.”

“City slicker,” Brodie shot back easily and settled in behind his desk. “So, what’s up?” he asked, raising an eyebrow curiously.

Ryder took a deep breath. “Willa’s working too hard. I want to help her scale back.”

Brodie chuckled. “You serious? Does your wife know you’re here?”

“Yeah, I am,” Ryder said calmly, sitting back in his chair. “And no, she doesn’t.”

Brodie stopped laughing and took a thoughtful sip of his drink. “You know she wouldn’t be thrilled that you’re having this conversation with me instead of her. Matter of fact, she wouldn’t be thrilled with either of us. You trying to get me in trouble?”

“No. But yesterday, I saw a whole different side of Willa.” Ryder described their day at Rushmore and noted without jealousy the way Brodie softened and smiled in disbelief. The man loved Willa like a sister—it was obvious he truly cared about her.

“You’re right. I haven’t seen that side of her,” Brodie admitted ruefully. “Ever since I’ve known Willa, she’s been focused on one thing.”

“Running the ranch?”

“More than that. Proving herself. To me, her grandpa, the hands . . . anybody she could. I think she always knew that Griffin would have preferred to be raising a boy, so she set out to show him and everybody else that she could do anything a boy could. She’s succeeded, at least with us, but she never left time in her life for anything else except the ranch, and I don’t think she would have the first idea of how to separate herself from things.”

“I don’t want her to separate herself from what she loves,” Ryder said quietly. “She wouldn’t be Willa without this place. I just want her to have the time and space for new things in her life, if she wants them. A dog, maybe kids, heck, even a hobby. She could pick up underwater basket weaving or cordon bleu cooking for all I care, if it makes her happy.”

Brodie was quiet for a moment, picking up a pen to fiddle with it. “I agree with you,” he finally replied, “But my first loyalty is to Willa. I still don’t think she’ll appreciate the interference. What do you have in mind?”

“Well, I may not be able to preg test a cow,” Ryder said wryly, “since my background is in public relations and not agricultural science, but I’ve got a college degree in business management and know my way around efficiency, general management, time-saving processes, things like that.” He stood up and began to pace the small area, excitement building in his voice as he tried to sell the foreman on the idea. “It’s always been fascinating to me, how to take a great operation and make it function even better. I even thought about opening a consulting firm before I went the PR direction. Anyway, I want to see if I can blend what I know with what you know. But before I can streamline things, I’m first going to need you to teach me everything you know about this place, bottom up, so I could run it myself.”

“Excuse me?” Willa stood in the doorway, hurt and disbelief written across her face.

* * *

The sunshine and late Indian summer they were having was going to finally be coming to an end, Willa realized as she checked the weather report. A cold front was forecasted to come in tonight, and, beginning the next day, the temperatures were going to finally catch up with the calendar. They were looking at lows in the twenties and the possibility of the season’s first snowstorm later in the week. Winter in the Black Hills was about to arrive.

Willa looked out the window of her office. The sky was a brilliant blue, with just a light breeze teasing the trees, and the sun was shining almost hard enough to convince her that the weatherman was wrong.  She shut down the computer. Maybe she didn’t have time to get away from the ranch with Ryder again today, but at the very least, they could go ride fences together. Maybe on horseback. Star was back to one hundred percent, and Ryder had been really coming along on his lessons. She could show him the hills that she loved, in the best way there was to experience them.

Willa grinned to herself. Who was she kidding? She didn’t need to use the weather or the ranch as an excuse. She just wanted to hang out with him.

Ryder and Brodie, usually as thick as thieves, were nowhere to be found, but Billy pointed her toward Brodie’s office. “They headed up there a little while ago,” the young man said cheerfully. “Haven’t seen them come down yet.”

“Thanks,” she said, heading toward the stairs, and then taking them two at a time. Brodie’s office door was closed, but she pushed it open, not thinking to knock.

“. . . teach me everything you know about this place, bottom up, so I could run it myself.”

She stopped, sure that she hadn’t heard Ryder right. But when she incredulously said, “Excuse me?” and the two men faced her in surprise, guilty looks on their faces, she knew. Betrayal quickly iced over into anger.

“It was never about me, was it?” Willa spat accusingly at Ryder. “From the beginning, you never intended to leave things the way they were. All along, you were just trying to lull me—Ever since you heard about the terms of the will—” Emotion choked off Willa’s voice, to her fury, she realized she was seconds away from crying.

Before Brodie or Ryder could reply, Willa spun around, hot tears blurring her eyes. She started to grab the railing on her way down to the main floor, but she was moving so fast, her foot missed a step, and then she was falling, and the things that happened next came and went in bits and pieces. Her elbow knocking hard against the wall, a sharp pain in her hip, a blinding one in her ankle, and finally, something hard cracking against the back of her head, and then there was nothing else.

* * *

Ryder’s only thought was to get to Willa and explain that what she’d thought she heard wasn’t what was going on at all. The look on her face before she’d run from the room—he wanted to kick himself. Brodie was right. He should have spoken directly to her first.

But the pit of dread in his stomach was nothing compared to the absolute terror that gripped him when he exited Brodie’s office just in time to see her slip. He was already in motion, knowing he wouldn’t be in time to catch her, but having to try, and saw every moment of her fall in a sequence that would haunt his nightmares. He felt like his feet didn’t even touch the steps as he flew down them, coming to his knees beside Willa’s still form. He hesitated, afraid to touch her. She was crumpled on the dusty floor like a rag doll, her face pale, and her eyes closed, the lids looking fragile and almost translucent. He didn’t hear Brodie yell at a white-faced Billy to call for an ambulance first and to get Mrs. Hollis second.  He didn’t hear himself uttering, “Dear God, dear God, dear God,” unable to even get out a full prayer.

“Ryder,” Brodie barked, jolting him out of it. “She’s got a pulse. She’s breathing. She’s going to be okay. Come on, you’re not helping her.”

Brodie was taking her vitals, Ryder realized. Then, his Red Cross training finally kicked in—those handy skills he renewed every couple of years but had never had the chance to use—and he took a deep breath. Willa needed him and it was time to focus.