doing was keeping me off the ranch. It may seem funny to an outsider, but I love working with my family on property we’ve owned for more than a hundred years.”
This was important, and she felt a sense of distance, as if this moment loomed larger-than-life.
“It doesn’t seem funny at all,” she said quietly. “I lo—really enjoy that about you.”
His smile seemed twisted with amusement and tenderness, and she could have lost herself in those vivid green eyes.
Nate finally cleared his throat. “About ten years ago, it began to be obvious that the ranch was in trouble. We’re small, and easily affected by a bad season, whether it’s a winter that lasts too long or a drought that affects our only hay crop of the year. In other parts of the country, they can have several cuttings a year, but up in the mountains, the season isn’t long enough for more than one. Anyway, my dad had some money set aside. Knowing diversification was a way for a small ranch to survive, he gave it to me to invest. I probably bragged too much when I got back from college about all I’d learned in my business classes.”
Emily touched his hand. “Or he trusted you.”
She expected Nate to shrug off her compliment, but he didn’t, only studied her with a seriousness that made her feel almost nervous.
“Thanks.” He squeezed her hand. “This ranch is everything to my family, and the heritage of the land and the trust my father and grandfather placed in the next generation to protect it . . . well, I couldn’t let go of this place. I couldn’t risk it failing. So I took the money and I invested it, just a little here or there, testing my theories on where we’d earn the most. And I discovered I seemed to have a knack for what would make a profit—bull genetics, organic produce in Aspen’s restaurants, rodeo stock, a winery on the Western Slope, even the stock market.”
She gave him a warm smile. “So you have a head for money. Why am I not surprised?”
“I guess I do. I invested for myself as well, and I’ve done pretty good.”
“Pretty good?” she echoed, amused.
“Pretty good.”
He smiled at her almost abashedly, and the warmth she felt for him curled right up inside her as if to stay. She felt a little jolt of fear, which she pushed down, as if squashing it would make it go away.
“So I have some money,” he said, a trace of resignation threading into his voice. “To help my dad simplify things, I bought out some of his own investments . . . like the lien on your building.”
“I take it you don’t mean recently.”
He shook his head.
She should be angry that he’d misled her, but she knew him so much better now, understood that he had fears he wouldn’t acknowledge, that his past had affected him just the same as hers had.
“You don’t have anything to say?” he said, warily studying her face.
She took a sip of her beer. “I guess whether it was you or your dad owning it, your family still did, and I’ll be repaying the debt.”
His eyes narrowed. “But I deliberately—”
“I know,” she interrupted. “You didn’t know me, Nate. I was some chick you’d gotten drunk with in a bar and who you’d now discovered was so broke she couldn’t afford a night in a motel. I don’t blame you for protecting yourself or your family. If I only thought you a cowboy, you could be certain I wouldn’t demand anything of you—that you wouldn’t get too close.”
He briefly rubbed his fingers over his eyes. “That sounds pretty bad.”
She took his hand again. “It wasn’t. I’m not angry.”
“But maybe you’re disappointed I didn’t tell you any of this sooner.”
“No. You’re a private person, Nate, and you were honest with me about that. I’ve heard about your involvement in the preservation fund.”
“You have?” he demanded. “Who—”
“It isn’t important. You do the best you can for the people you believe in, and you don’t want anyone’s thanks, so you keep it private. The fund lets you help, while keeping your distance, not risking guiding a person a way they might not want to go, right?”
He winced. “I never thought of it like that. I kept parts of my financial life private for other reasons. A lot of my dad’s friends wish the town wasn’t changing, that their ranching lives would stay the same, that newcomers would never find our little