Ten

Elizabeth and Max arrived at Mimosa Landing just after noon on Thanksgiving Day. They no sooner stepped inside out of the cold than Aunt Talitha, Mimi and even quiet little Martha began to bombard them with questions.

“What happened?”

“Why are you back so soon?”

“Are you ill?”

“Oh, my, you do look a little peaked, child.”

“I’m fine, Aunt Talitha. Just give us a minute to take our coats off,” Elizabeth pleaded. “Then we’ll explain everything.”

With obvious impatience the women held their tongues until they were seated around the roaring fire in the front parlor, all except Martha, who lingered in the doorway.

The Mimosa Landing housekeeper was the exact opposite of her counterpart in Houston. Where Gladys was tall, raw-boned and a bit on the brusque side, Martha was a little dumpling of a woman, quiet and meek and unassuming.

Aunt Talitha gave Elizabeth an imperious look and thumped her cane against the floor. “Well? Out with it.”

Elizabeth hated to upset her aunt, but she felt it best that she explain what had happened rather than risk her finding out later through a slip of the tongue.

Whitewashing the story as much as she could, she told them what had occurred. By the time she’d finished all three women were staring at her with shocked expressions.

“Oh, my word.” Talitha put her age-spotted hand over her heart. “Why, that’s awful. That…that monster actually tried to run you down in the street?”

“Yes. If it hadn’t been for Mrs. Phelps I probably wouldn’t be here.”

“I do hope you got her address,” her aunt said. “I must write to the dear lady and express my gratitude.”

“That thug probably followed you to your hotel. He must’ve been watchin’ your suite, waitin’ for Max to leave.” Mimi shivered and rubbed her goose-bumpy arms. “That’s so creepy.”

“I just don’t understand this. Why on earth would anyone want Elizabeth dead?” her aunt asked.

Speaking up for the first time, Max said, “Detective Gertski thinks it’s a case of mistaken identity. I’m inclined to agree, but after two attempts on Elizabeth’s life, I decided to get her out of New York. I could have taken her somewhere else for the rest of our honeymoon, but she wanted to come home.”

“Of course she did. You did the right thing, my boy. After that kind of fright the child needs to be with her family.”

Aunt Talitha gave Max an approving look and reached over and patted his arm. “I’m so glad she has a real man like you to look after her now. Not some namby-pamby like that no-good Edward Culpepper. I never liked that man,” she declared, thumping her cane against the Oriental rug for emphasis.

Mimi eyed Max and drawled, “All I can say, stud, is I sure as hell hope you’re good in bed. ’Cause that was some cruddy honeymoon.”

“Mimi, behave yourself,” Talitha admonished in a weary tone that said she despaired of that ever happening.

“I think I hear the stove timer buzzing,” Martha murmured, and hurried out of the room. Moments later she reappeared in the doorway and announced that dinner was ready.

Throughout the meal, speculation about the incidents in New York continued. Now that she was home, Elizabeth felt safe. The two scares seemed more like bad dreams than reality, and she wanted to put them out of her mind. By the time the meal was over she was sick of the subject.

Groaning and berating themselves for eating too much, the three women and Max adjourned to the den at the back of the house. The large room, built in 1950, was the newest addition to the rambling mid-nineteenth century farmhouse, and the one the family used most.

“Why don’t you show me around the farm,” Max suggested to Elizabeth before she had a chance to get comfortable. “I don’t know about you, but I could use some exercise after that meal.”

“Good idea,” she replied, jumping at the chance to escape any more pointless speculation. Also, there was nothing she liked better than to show off her beloved farm.

“Mimi, would you like to come along while I show Max around?” Elizabeth asked her friend.

Mimi chuckled. “Are you kiddin’ me, sugar? No way am I trompin’ through the fields in these four-inch heels.”

“You could change into a pair of sneakers.”

That produced an unladylike snort. “Now, sugar, I ask you, do I look like a woman who would even own such a thing?”

With a dramatic sigh, Mimi plopped down onto one of the den’s long sofas and stretched out. Talitha, as always, sat down in her padded rocker and hooked her cane over one arm.

“Go on, you two.” With a bejeweled hand Mimi waved Elizabeth and Max on their way. “To tell the truth, Aunt Talitha and I are glad there won’t be a male here to insist on watching a football game. While you two are tramping through the fields, steppin’ in cow pies and freezing your arses off, we’re gonna watch one of the shopping networks.”

“Suit yourself,” Elizabeth said with a laugh. She looked at Max. “Just give me a minute to run upstairs and change into my jeans and some walking shoes.”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

“Wait. I’ll come with you.” With languid movements, Mimi hauled herself off the sofa. “It’ll give us a chance for a bit of private girl talk.”

Arm in arm, the two women strolled out of the den. Over her shoulder Mimi sent Max a mischievous smile and winked.

Watching them go, he shook his head. “How in the hell did those two women ever become such close friends?”

“Yes, they do seem an unlikely pair, don’t they.” Aunt Talitha motioned toward the matching chair next to her own. “Come over here and sit down and I’ll tell you the history behind their friendship.”

For several moments after Max sat down the old woman stared off into space, as though mentally transporting herself back to another time.

“First of all, for you to understand, I’m going to have to give you a little family background,” she finally said.

Max nodded. “Sure. Go ahead.” He was an active player in today’s fast-paced world. His instinct was to get to the point and get on with things. Had she been anyone else he would have tried to hurry her along, but Max was beginning to realize that it was futile to rush the old lady. Great-aunt Talitha did things at her own pace.

“Elizabeth’s father, Ransom Patrick Stanton, was my brother Pierce’s son. Pierce was much older than my twin sister, Mariah, and I. We were late-in-life babies for our parents, you see. So we were only five years old when Ransom was born, and he always seemed more like a brother to us than a nephew.

“Ah, he grew up to be a dashing, handsome young man,” the old lady reminisced with a fond smile, her eyes growing misty. “The strong character and pioneering blood of the Stantons ran deep in him.

“The family was tickled pink when he married Victoria Trent. Such a lovely girl she was,” Talitha said with a wistful sigh. “The very essence of genteel femininity.

“Mmm. Victoria and Ransom were the perfect couple. Everyone said so—he with his strength and confidence, his rugged good looks and winning personality, she with her softness, her compassion, her elegant beauty. Elizabeth inherited the best of both of them.

“And Lord, Lord, did that child adore her parents, especially her mother.

“Victoria died of breast cancer when Elizabeth was nine and the poor child was devastated,” Talitha recalled with a sad note in her voice. “Not that she cried or carried on or anything, mind you. Truth be told, we were all praying that she would. Instead she grew even more somber and quiet and pulled back from everyone, holding all that grief and anguish inside her.

“Our next-door neighbor in Houston, Horace Whittington, had married Mimi just a few days before Victoria died. Mimi was barely nineteen at the time. Horace was a fifty-two-year-old widower.”

“Ah, now I get it. The girl from the wrong side of the tracks snared herself a rich old man, and started living on easy street. I figured it was something like that. Despite the designer clothes and jewelry, she just doesn’t have the polish of someone born to money.” And he should know, Max thought privately. Neither did he.

Of course…Elizabeth had married him for his money, he thought with a frown. Yet he did not think of her as a gold digger, partly because the marriage had been his idea, and because theirs was a mutually beneficial deal, one they’d both entered into with their eyes wide open. He wondered if poor old Horace had known it was his deep pockets that had attracted Mimi.

Making a scornful sound, Max shook his head. “Ah, well. They say there’s no fool like an old fool.”

“I can understand why you would think that,” Talitha murmured. “I’ll admit, at first I thought much the same thing. We all did. But we soon learned better.

“Mimi had a hard childhood. After the deaths of her parents she was passed from relative to relative, but nobody wanted her. After about a year of that she went into foster care. That’s where she stayed, bouncing from one home to another until, at sixteen, she decided that she’d had enough and ran away.

“When Horace met her she was a competitive ballroom dancer. I think he was the first person to show her genuine love, and Mimi loved him right back, with every fiber in her. For more than twenty years they were one of the happiest couples I’ve ever known. It just about killed her when she lost him.

“Horace, bless him, saw past the brash exterior to the innate goodness in Mimi—the big heart, the compassion, the honesty. And with the clear vision of a child, so did Elizabeth.

“For her part, Mimi understood the bottled-up pain and sense of loss in that motherless little girl’s eyes and responded to it. Whenever the grief became too much for Elizabeth, quiet as a mouse she would squeeze through the hedge separating our Houston estate from the Whittingtons’ and seek out Mimi. Elizabeth did not have to say a word. Mimi had only to look at that sad little face and she would drop whatever she was doing and open her arms to the child.”

Talitha shook her head, her expression soft with the memory. “Whenever Elizabeth went missing I always knew where to find her. Many’s the time I’ve walked into the Whittingtons’ sunroom and found Mimi cuddling the child in her lap, quietly rocking her.”

Shaking off the memory, Talitha turned her gaze on Max. “I will forever be grateful to Mimi for getting Elizabeth through that awful time. They’ve been close ever since.

“Of course, over the years, as Elizabeth matured, their relationship changed from one of mentor-child to a friendship between equals, but the tie is as strong as ever. It’s a rare day that they don’t spend some time together, if only dance hour.”

“Dance hour?”

“Mimi started giving Elizabeth dancing lessons when she was nine. To this day, they spend an hour each morning dancing, either in the studio in the attic of the Whittington home, or the one here that Elizabeth had installed above the old carriage house. They dance to keep in shape, and because they both love it.”

“Hmm. I’d like to watch that sometime.”

“Good luck with that. Elizabeth doesn’t like to have an audience. But the point of all this is that Mimi was a godsend when the child needed her, and she’s Elizabeth’s best friend now.”

“Thanks for telling me,” Max said. “Now things make more sense.”

“Yes. It’s interesting how a different perspective can alter your opinion of someone, isn’t it?” Talitha held his gaze, and Max could see the shrewdness in her faded blue eyes.

“Yes. Yes, it is.”

“May I offer you one piece of advice?”

“Sure.” Max had the feeling she was going to, no matter what he said.

“A wise man would not try to break up that friendship.”

He mulled that over for a moment then nodded. “I’m sure you’re right.”

The instant they were out of earshot, Mimi squeezed Elizabeth’s arm and leaned in close. “I’ve been dyin’ for hours to get you alone so I can ask this. How is he?” she whispered.

“How is who?”

“Max. You know…between the sheets.”

“Mimi! What a thing to ask. Behave yourself.”

“Don’t be silly. That’s no fun. Well?”

“Forget it. That topic isn’t open for discussion.”

They reached the top of the stairs, and Elizabeth pulled her arm free from her friend’s grasp and hurried down the hallway to her bedroom. Mimi hurried after her, the soles of her backless stilettos slap-slapping against the bottoms of her heels with each step.

Inside the bedroom, Elizabeth headed for the enormous walk-in closet, but at the entrance she stopped and lifted up the back of her hair. Without having to be asked, Mimi pulled down the long zipper.

“Aw, c’mon, sugar. I’m your best friend. You can tell me. I won’t say a word to anyone. I promise.” She held up four fingers. “Girl Scout’s honor.”

Elizabeth paused in the act of stepping out of the long wool dress she’d worn for dinner and cocked a dubious eyebrow at her friend. “Oh, right.”

She went into the closet and hung up her dress. Mimi followed close on her heels.

After stepping out of her pumps, Elizabeth hooked her thumbs underneath the waistband of her panty hose and peeled them off, as well, and tossed the gossamer garment into a satin-lined basket that held things to be hand-washed.

“And you were never a Girl Scout.”

“Okay, okay. So maybe I would tell Doreen,” Mimi admitted with a rueful pout. “But only because we have a bet goin’.”

“You what?” Clutching the jeans she’d just pulled off the hanger in one hand, Elizabeth spun around. Wearing only the lacy light blue bikini panties and matching bra, she planted her fists on her hip bones. “You actually bet on my sex life. Honestly, Mimi, that’s too much. Even for you.”

“Now, before you get your nose out of joint, hear me out. I didn’t mean for things to get out of hand—” Mimi sucked in a sharp breath, and Elizabeth saw that her horrified stare was fixed on her injured hip.

“Omigod! Oh, sugar, I thought you said that car just grazed you. That looks awful. It has to hurt like hell.”

Looking down at the huge livid bruise, Elizabeth grimaced. The flesh was now a dark, almost greenish purple that faded at the edges to colorful shades of yellow, blood-red and blue.

“It’s not so bad. You know how easily I bruise. It looks worse than it feels.”

“Have you seen an orthopedic guy?” Mimi came closer, bent over for a better look and gently touched the insulted flesh with one crimson-tipped finger.

“No, I had an X-ray in New York. It’ll be fine. She stepped into the jeans, picked out a thick russet turtleneck from the stack of sweaters on the shelves at the back of the room-size closet and pulled it on over her head.

With Mimi dogging her heels again, she went back into the bedroom and sat down on the padded bench at the end of the bed to put on her socks and walking shoes. As she worked she aimed a narrow-eyed look at her friend. “And don’t think you can distract me. Explain about this bet.”

“Oh, you know how Doreen is,” Mimi said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “She’s between husbands and in the market for a lover. For the past year or so she’s been trying to lure Max into her bed, with no success.”

Elizabeth looked up in the midst of pulling on rust-colored socks. “Are you sure about that?”

“One hundred percent. You know Doreen. If she’d ever had Max as a lover, the whole world would know.”

That was true, Elizabeth realized with an unexplainable sense of relief.

“When Doreen heard that you’d married Max she was pissed as all get out. She tried to save face by saying she’d only been kidding about him. And that he probably wasn’t all that hot as a lover, anyway.

“I couldn’t let her get by with that, now, could I? We argued and one thing led to another, and the next thing I knew, we had a bet going.”

“I see. And just how were you going to find out?” Having finished dressing, Elizabeth ran a brush through her hair, then headed for the door.

“We agreed to accept your opinion,” Mimi said, scrambling to keep up with her. “Everyone knows that you don’t lie. So, c’mon, sugar. Tell me.”

“No.”

“Aw, don’t be that way,” Mimi pleaded.

“Sorry. I’m not going to discuss my sex life with you or anyone else.”

In her comfy walking shoes, Elizabeth tripped easily down the stairs, but she couldn’t lose her shadow. To keep up, Mimi kicked off her stilettos, sending them sailing over Elizabeth’s head into the foyer below, and stuck to Elizabeth like a cocklebur on a sock.

“C’mon, sugar. If you can’t tell me, who else can you tell.”

“My point, exactly. My husband’s prowess in bed is not fodder for gossip.” At the bottom of the stairs, with one hand grasping the newelpost, she made a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn and headed for the back of the house.

“Ooh. That ‘my husband’ sounded very proprietorial. Is there something going on between you two that you’ve neglected to tell me?”

“No.”

Mimi groaned. “C’mon, sugar,” she said to Elizabeth’s back, hurrying after her. “Look, if you don’t want to get into details, I’ll understand.”

“My, that’s big of you.”

“Just tell me, on a scale of one to ten, where would you rank him? Ten being the best.”

Elizabeth heaved a big sigh. “You’re not going to let this go until I tell, are you?”

Mimi grinned. “You darn betcha I’m not.”

They walked into the den and Max rose.

“Ready?”

“Yes. There are coats in the mudroom that we can use.” Elizabeth bent and kissed her aunt’s papery cheek. “We’ll be back in an hour or so.”

“Yes, yes. I know. Now, be off with you. And have a good time.”

Elizabeth turned to leave, then stopped and looked at her friend. “Oh, by the way Mimi. That number you wanted?”

Mimi’s face lit up. “Yes?”

Elizabeth’s answering smile was smug. “It’s twelve.”

Her friend gasped and her eyes bugged. “Ooh. Be still, my heart,” she murmured, fanning herself with her hand.

Max watched the exchange with a curious frown. “What was that all about?” he asked as he and Elizabeth bundled up in the mudroom.

“Nothing, really. That was just Mimi being Mimi.”

They stepped outside into the cold. “She’s a real character, isn’t she?”

“Yes. Mimi is one of a kind,” Elizabeth replied with affection. Another blast of frigid wind hit them and they both shivered and put up their coat collars. Though the temperature was only forty degrees, the humidity was high and it felt more like twenty outside. “Why don’t we walk to the river?”

“Sure. Whatever you say. Lead the way.”

Looking back over his shoulder, Max realized that the farmhouse sat atop a small hill, about a mile off a secondary country road. From the back of the house the land gradually sloped downward to the banks of the Brazos River.

“The farm is basically a long, irregular rectangle that stretches out from here equidistant to the north and the south along the east bank of the Brazos,” Elizabeth explained. “That’s probably a lot farther than you’d want to walk in one day. My foreman, Truman Sawyer, and the other hired hands ride four-wheelers to get around. We could use those if you’d like.”

“No, I’d rather walk.”

“Me, too.”

In silence, they walked along a well-worn path toward the river, he with his hands in the pockets of the fleece-lined denim jacket that he purloined off a hook by the back door, Elizabeth in a battered peacoat, her head up and a contented smile on her face. The wind blew her hair every which way, but she didn’t fuss the way a lot of women would. She hardly seemed to notice.

“I can see why you love this place,” Max said after a time, looking around at the gently rolling hills dotted here and there with stands of ancient oak, pecan, walnut and mimosa trees. “This is a beautiful spot.”

“Mmm,” she agreed absently.

They reached the river and stopped near a ramshackle structure made of hand-hewn logs and corrugated tin. Here the bank dropped off fifteen to twenty feet in a sheer cliff to the muddy waters of the Brazos below.

“That’s the cotton gin that Asa built,” Elizabeth said, pointing toward the aging log building. “In the old days farmers from miles around brought their cotton here to be ginned and baled and shipped to market.

“In the early 1800s paddle wheelers used to navigate up and down this river, selling goods and picking up crops. The first few years, while the settlers were getting established, their main cash crops were pecans and potash. Later, cotton and indigo and sugarcane products were their money-makers. In more recent years we’ve started alternating the crops so as not to deplete the soil.

“Of course, that was long before the government dammed the river upstream near Mineral Wells. When the water level dropped, the big boats could no longer get through. Before that happened the Brazos was a deep, fast-running, clear river. In those days the banks on both sides were lined with mimosa trees along here, many of which survive to this day. That’s how the farm came to be called Mimosa Landing.”

She pointed downward. “Look down there, and you can see the remains of the old wharf.”

Max leaned over and spotted a rickety wooden structure clinging to the steep bank about halfway to the water. “This place, and your family, have quite a history,” he commented.

“Yes,” she said with quiet pride.

“How many acres do you have all told?”

“A little over three thousand. Great-great-grampa Asa Pierce Stanton homesteaded the original plot of about six hundred acres shortly after he came to Texas with Stephen F. Austin in the early 1800s. Gradually he bought out other settlers up and down the river, people who couldn’t make a go of it. By the time of the Texas Revolution against Mexico, he’d more than tripled his original grant.

“When he first arrived he built a two-room log cabin and got this place going, then sent back to Savannah for his sweetheart, Talitha Camille Brown.”

Elizabeth walked over to an enormous mimosa tree and stood beneath the spreading limbs. “They were married in the spring of 1830 on this very spot by a roving preacher. The mimosas and wildflowers were in full bloom.”

“Really?” Max said, looking around. “I’ll bet this is a beautiful spot in the spring.”

“Yes, it is,” she agreed. Returning to his side, she gazed at the river, her hands tucked into her coat pockets. “From 1833 to April 1836, Asa served in the Texas Army. He was wounded at San Jacinto.”

“The last battle in the war?” At Elizabeth’s nod Max shook his head. “That’s too bad.”

“He survived, thank God. For his service, he was awarded an additional thousand acres of rich bottom land adjacent to his property.”

Max let out a low whistle. “That’s a lot of land. Is it all still intact?”

“Yes. No Stanton has ever sold so much as a teaspoon of this land.”

“I guess you wouldn’t, either, huh?”

“That’s right,” she vowed. “Not even if I have to take a job slinging hash at a greasy spoon.”

Max almost laughed out loud, but he caught himself in time. She was deadly serious.

Turning his head, Max studied her determined profile. Including marrying me, he thought.

Why that thought bothered him, he didn’t understand, but it did.

Without talking, they walked along the river bank for a ways, then turned back. Near the house, Elizabeth pointed out an old log structure. “That’s the original cabin that Asa built, where he and Talitha Camille began their marriage. Out back of the cabin are the big cauldrons they used on wash day. In the fall they made soap and candles in them.

“That log building over there straddling the stream is the springhouse. That was the equivalent of a refrigerator in the old days. The flowing water inside keeps the temperature at a steady fifty degrees so the perishables all stay cool.”

“What’s that over there?” Max asked, pointing to a contraption set in the middle of a foot-deep rutted circle.

“That’s the old sugarcane press. It was run by oxen or mule power. See the long bar that sticks out? That was hooked to the animal’s harness, and as he walked in a circle, workers fed the sugarcanes into the hopper and the press squeezed out the juice. Years of the animals plodding created that rut in the ground.”

“Fascinating,” Max murmured, inspecting the machine at closer range.

“And that log structure over there beyond the springhouse is the smokehouse,” Elizabeth went on.

“That structure over there must be the carriage house where you have your dance studio.”

“Let me guess. Aunt Talitha told you about the dancing?”

“Yeah. I’d like to watch you and Mimi sometime.”

Elizabeth started shaking her head before the words were out of his mouth. “Oh, no. The studios are off limits to everyone but us.”

“We’ll see,” Max pronounced, and changed the subject.

Elizabeth gave Max a tour of the inside of both the animal barn and the equipment barn. In the latter Max looked over an enormous machine. “This looks new,” he said, running his fingertips along the bright yellow paint. “What is it?”

“It’s a combine for harvesting grain. And you’re right about it being new. It was delivered just last Monday. Truman can hardly wait to put it to use. I swear, the man loves this machine almost as much as he does his kids,” she said, chuckling.

Walking deeper into the barn, she pointed out a cotton picker, a disk, a hay baler and various other pieces of equipment that were foreign to him. Finally she climbed up into the enclosed cab of the biggest tractor that Max had ever seen. “This is another new piece of equipment,” she said, bouncing on the seat. “You’re seeing firsthand how your money is being spent.”

He made a noncommittal sound and climbed up into the cab with her. “It looks like a first-class piece of equipment,” he said. “That’s good. I believe in buying quality.”

“Oh, Truman’s going to love you,” Elizabeth said with a laugh.

“Oh, yeah? Do you suppose he’ll let me drive this baby sometime?”

“I don’t know,” she teased, slanting him a dubious look. “Truman is verrry particular about his farm equipment.”

“Hmm. I guess I’ll have to get on his good side.”

“That’s no easy feat. A man has to prove himself to Truman, but once he accepts you, you’ve got a loyal friend for life.”

“I kind of guessed that.”

Outside the barn, they paused beside a corral to watch a feisty colt kick up his heels and run for the sheer pleasure of it. Elizabeth stepped up on the bottom rail of the wooden fence, bringing herself on eye level with Max.

“I can see why you love it here. I do, as well, but the trips back and forth from Houston are going to eat up time. Would you object to me having a helipad built here? That way I could switch to a helicopter at the airport and be here in minutes.”

“I don’t mind. But if I were you I’d get Truman’s advice about where to put it.”

“Good idea.”

“Is Tom licensed to fly a helicopter as well as a jet?”

“No, but I am. I’ll fly myself to and from the Houston airport.”

“You? But…isn’t that dangerous?”

“Relax. I flew helicopters when I was a marine. I’ve kept my license up to date.”

“Okay. If that’s what you want to do, go ahead. Just don’t expect me to ride in it.”

On the way back to the house, Max kept stealing glances at Elizabeth’s profile. She was different here. Happier. More alive.

Her cheeks were pink from the cold, her hair mussed by the wind. But she wore contentment like an old soft coat. Her eyes gleamed with it. The hint of a smile around the corners of her mouth gave her a Mona Lisa look—as though she knew some basic truth about the meaning of life.

“You really love it here, don’t you?”

“Mmm. I’d rather be here than any place on earth.”

“Then why don’t you sell the Houston place and live here all the time?”

“Several reasons. For the past few generations of Stantons, family business has required us to spend a lot of time in Houston. Over the years my family’s roots have sunk almost as deep there as they are here. We’ve called the Houston house home number two ever since my great-grandfather’s day. Another important point for me is it’s next door to Mimi.” She stooped and picked a long leaf off a plant and pulled it through her fingers. “And then there’s Gladys and Dooley to think about.”

Staring down at her delicate profile as they drew near the house, Max realized just how far off the mark his assessment of her had been.

He’d proposed because he’d known that she was in desperate financial straits. At the time he’d thought that her desire to hold on to Mimosa Landing was more a matter of saving face than anything else. He knew—hell, everyone in that part of the state knew—that this farm was and had always been the number-one symbol of her family’s wealth and their place in society.

Not once had he doubted that she would accept his proposal. He had been certain that, being born to wealth, when push came to shove, she wouldn’t be able to give up her privileged lifestyle and all the things that money could buy.

He’d been wrong. And that bothered him.

He could see by the passion in those blue-green eyes that the money meant little to her. What mattered to Elizabeth was this farm, this land. And the people she loved.

It seemed that, through plain dumb luck, he’d married himself one hell of a woman.