Sylvia woke, looking forward to seeing Leland. Before she could make it out the door to his house, her cell phone rang with the number from her boss back at the office.

She answered the phone and greeted him with a cheerful good morning.

"How is your audit going, Sylvia?" he asked.

"I've sorted through several years, and it's slowly but surely getting sorted out."

"I'm going to need you to come back to the office and continue working on the case here."

"I'm only halfway done."

"Gather up your paperwork and come back to the office. This field audit is over. It's taking too long, and I want you back at headquarters. The debt is too high for you to work on the case alone. This may take a turn for the worse."

"What are you talking about?"

"We'll discuss this all when you are back to the office later today. Gather up whatever documentation you have and bring it with you."

"Okay," Sylvia said.

Mr. Stands hung up the phone. She was left standing in front of the door of her hotel room, wondering what had just happened.

She hadn't told Mr. Stands that she had begun a romantic relationship with Leland Kincaid. She knew it was a terrible conflict of interest and that Mr. Stands would've taken her off the case immediately.

She had hoped she'd have time to sort through all Leland’s dad’s documents before returning to the office. She'd hoped she could somehow buffer the worst of it. Now his documents would be poured over by a team of agents, and she would not be able to control the process. She squeezed her eyes closed and put her palm to her forehead, shaking it slowly from side to side.

She grabbed her purse, jacket and briefcase before leaving the hotel. She hurried down the stairs to her car. She had to get to Leland's house to pick up the paperwork.

And she had to tell him goodbye.

She couldn't believe that this was all happening so fast. She would have bet anything that they would have more time together, but she'd been wrong. Now she would have to go back to Portland and continue the audit with impartial parties, possibly never seeing Leland again, except in court. The idea caused a tear to stream down her eye. She didn't want to tell him.

She didn't want to come out of the fantasy they'd been weaving together, where they could somehow have a relationship and everything worked out happily in the end. She shook her head, trying to keep the tears inside.

She worked as an auditor. She was supposed to be above feelings like this. But she definitely was not. Leland was everything she'd ever wanted in a man, and the thought of losing him made a cold stone sink into the pit of her stomach.

When she parked in front of his house, she could barely bring herself to get out of the car. She didn't open her door until he stepped out onto the porch and gave her a questioning look. She grabbed her briefcase and slid out of her car, approaching him slowly across the gravel.

"Good morning, sweetheart," he said, holding a mug of coffee in his hand.

He was wearing a flannel shirt and a puffy gray vest. He had a day of stubble still on his chin. When he leaned in to kiss her softly on the lips, she could smell the musky scent of his cologne and the bitter sweet smell of coffee. He wrapped his arms around her and held her close.

"Can I get you a cup of coffee?"

"I'd love that, but I can't stay," she said, stepping back.

He looked at her with a questioning expression. "You can't stay? There's still so much work to be done."

"I've been called back to headquarters. I need to take the documents with me."

Her heart sank even further. She couldn't even meet his eyes.

"You’re leaving?" he said slowly.

"I have to. I have no other choice."

"Well, it doesn't seem as if it can be helped. If your boss wants you to come back to the office, then you need to go back to the office, right?"

He stood back and invited her inside. She let out a deep breath as she walked into the dining room where the paperwork was still spread across the table.

"You're going to need some boxes," he said, setting his coffee down.

She couldn't believe how calm he was being about all this. She could have sworn he would be worried about her going back with his documents. But when he came back in the room, his eyes were clear and he had a smile on his face. He set several empty plastic bins on the table and started loading them with papers.

"You're being so understanding," Sylvia said. "But I’m afraid."

"Why, babe?" he said, stepping toward her. "What are you afraid of?"

"I'm afraid of what will happen back at headquarters. I wasn't going to cheat or anything like that. But I was going to be as gentle as humanly possible," she said, still looking down at the table.

He lifted her chin to force her to look at him.

"Whatever happens happens. This ranch...of course it matters to me. But ever since the first moment I laid eyes on you, Sylvia Becker, you've been everything to me, and you always will be. After this is all over, if you still want me, we'll figure out where to go. No matter what. Understand?"

"I hope you will still say that if the auditors take your ranch,” she said morosely.

She couldn't help it. She'd been waiting for a man like Leland all her life. Then, when she’d found him, there was a real possibility that she would be responsible for taking away everything he'd ever loved. She just couldn't bear it. She didn't know if she could live with herself if it happened.

"You're going to have to believe me, babe," Leland said.

"I do believe you," she said weakly as he wrapped her in his arms.

"Let's get these things packed up and get you on the road. I've decided to go up the mountain to check on Cyrus. If he knows anything about what our dad was up to all those years ago, then it's time well spent. Plus, I think my brother needs to know that I'm home. That our father passed away and that I'm the new Alpha of the Kincaid clan. That's going to need to happen whether or not he has any information for me."

"It'll be good for you to see him," Sylvia said.

She didn't have any brothers or sisters of her own, which was something that had always lingered at the back of her mind, but she could understand why Leland would need to confront his brother and to update him on all of the family news. She also hoped that his brother held a missing piece to the puzzle.

Leland helped her carry the plastic bins out to her car and load them in the trunk. When he was done, he kissed her on the lips and held her tight for a good long time before Buck backed a backhoe out of the garage, creating a storm of noise and dust as he passed.

"I should get going," she said softly.

Leland kissed her one more time, and she slid into the driver’s seat of her car. As she drove down the driveway and pulled onto the highway, the critical voice at the back of her mind kept telling her that it was the last time she'd see Leland Kincaid and that her life would be better for it. Who needed a man who wanted the things a shifter wanted? A loyal wife, who stayed at home to take care of children and him. She had a career. She was strong. She had a home and a pet, and everything she needed. Leland didn't even have any property. How could he ever take care of her?

She shook her head and made the terrible voices go away as tears streamed down her cheek. She didn't want to go back into the office and show her boss Leland's father's disjointed paperwork. But as Leland had so wisely said, there was no helping it. There was no way to avoid it.

She drove into the parking lot of the tax headquarters at noon. She grabbed her purse and briefcase and went inside to find Mr. Stands waiting for her at her desk.

"It's about time you arrived," he said.

"I got here as soon as I could."

"This case is bigger than we suspected.”

"I don't understand. I'm the auditor on the case. How could you have gotten information that I don't have?" Sylvia asked.

"We had an anonymous tip from some people who claimed to know Hank Kincaid. They claimed he was purposefully fraudulent in his business practices. The anonymous tip gave us names, dates and information that could very well lead to a charge of fraud against the Kincaids.”

"Hank Kincaid is no longer alive.”

"But his sons inherited the corporation’s debt, and it's going to need to be paid."

"You don't have any proof of this anonymous caller’s accuracy.”

"But our preliminary assessment of the Kincaids’ overall debt is close to a million dollars. That is the kind of debt the government definitely wants to collect."

"I'll go get the documents from the car,” she muttered, dropping her purse and briefcase on her chair and storming out of the office with a rising panic in her chest. How could he possibly want to take the Kincaids to court? They had nothing to do with any of it.

They’d just been living their own lives and minding their own business. From what Sylvia understood, Hank Kincaid had been become an overzealous supervisor who did not allow the boys to have any input in how the business was run. None of them had any idea what was happening.

She grabbed the boxes of files from the car and trudged into the office, slamming them down on her desk. There was already a group of auditors in her office, and they grabbed all the boxes as soon she set it all down. The team took everything and hurried off to a conference room.

Sylvia shook her head in disgust, hoping against hope that Leland would find some miracle when he spoke with his brother Cyrus. They had to save the ranch, because Sylvia knew that if Leland lost his land, he would associate it with her. He wouldn’t be able to help it. They could never be happy together, no matter how much they loved each other.