Life After Wife (Three Magic Words Trilogy, #3)(55)

“Elijah and I are going over to Theron and Fancy’s place this afternoon. He wants to look at some cattle, and the girls and I have our gossip fest on Sunday if everyone can make it,” Sophie said.

Hayden stood up and stretched the kinks from his back and neck. He was almost as tall as Elijah and maybe ten pounds heavier. Still handsome enough to make women take a second or third look with his dark looks and thick lashes over dark brown eyes. Tanner did the same. He was plainly Hayden’s twin, but his face was slightly thinner, his eyes a lighter brown, and his hair had a bit of wave in it.

It hadn’t taken Sophie long to figure out their differences, and now she had no trouble telling them apart. Besides Tanner’s lighter eyes, he was the one who spoke up the fastest while Hayden was the deeper thinker.

“Hungry?” Elijah asked Sophie when they were gone.

“Are there leftovers?”

“No, but there’s still pancake batter in the bowl and the griddle is on the stove,” he answered.

She pushed back her chair and headed to the kitchen. “Pancakes sound good. How do you take them?”

“I’ve already eaten. Me and the boys had breakfast together.”

She smiled.

His heart did one of those crazy flip-flops that constricted his chest muscles.

She went on, “I figured that much. I like mine with butter, applesauce, and then a little syrup drizzled over the top. I was asking you how you like yours.”

“Melted butter and lots of maple syrup,” he answered.

She filed that away for the next Sunday when she planned to do the cooking. Maybe she’d treat them to her pumpkin pancakes or the new recipe she and Maud discovered using ground pecans. Both went exceptionally well with maple syrup.

She was still thinking about cooking when the fine hair on her neck prickled and she turned quickly to find herself in Elijah’s arms. He’d taken the coffeepot to the cabinet and was peering over her shoulder, watching her flip pancakes and then his arms were around her. She turned slowly without making him loosen his hold. Their gazes locked. Her gray eyes searched deeply into his blue ones, and then their lips connected in a passionate kiss that left her knees weak and her heart about to jump plumb out of her chest and do a jig on the floor.

“I was about to make another pot of coffee. I expect you’ll need some after all that sweet syrup,” he whispered hoarsely.

She cocked her head to one side and shimmied out of his arms. How in the great green earth could he kiss her like that and then talk about coffee? If her kisses affected him the way his did her, he wouldn’t be able to utter a sane word, much less talk about coffee! She could have strangled the man until he turned blue and then slapped him for changing colors.

Life was not fair! She should have listened to common sense the first time she saw him on that motorcycle at Maud’s funeral. It said to shoot the man. Now she’d let him inch his way into her heart and had no idea how to get him out.



Elijah had just about lost his socks when he kissed Sophie. It happened every time their lips touched. He hadn’t come to Baird looking for anything but a quiet, busy life of ranching. He certainly hadn’t planned on falling for the sassy redhead determined to send him packing off to another ranch. But he had and now he didn’t have any idea what to do about it.

If he started a relationship with her, she’d always wonder if it was because he really wanted her half of the ranch. He didn’t have a doubt that he could trust her and that she would be faithful. After the way she’d been treated in the past, she would never enter into a relationship without being totally sure that it was the right thing and that it was eternal.

Eternal, Elijah thought as he busied himself at the kitchen sink, rinsing the coffeepot. Mercy, was he really thinking of something long-term with Sophie McSwain? Could he even think the M word without getting hives?

After he’d gotten the message from his ex-fiancé, he’d vowed he’d never trust another woman. And yet, there he was, thinking Sophie and marriage in the same sentence and there wasn’t a single itchy splotch on him. When and where had he fallen for the woman?

It sure hadn’t been love at first sight. He’d been sure she would take his money and take off for the nearest shopping mall, but he’d been wrong. He frowned as he tried to remember the first time they’d even been civil to each other.

It had only been five weeks, but he felt as if he’d known her his whole life, and it had happened slowly over the hours and days of working side by side. Now what in the devil was he supposed to do with it?

Could he offer her the life after wife that she wanted? She deserved it and more. She was the hardest working woman he knew, maybe even more so than his mother had been. Sophie would crawl up on a tractor, get her hands dirty changing oil or transmission fluid, and bale hay with the best of the hired hands. And then she could dress up in her Western boots and fancy clothes and fit into his arms like they were made for dancing together.

“Whatever are you thinking about?” she asked, breaking into his inner thoughts.

He jumped. “Fishin’.”

“Well, you’ve washed that pot three times. I reckon it’s clean.” She piled the last pancake on a plate and carried it to the table.

He chuckled. “Guess I was doin’ some powerful woolgathering.”

“Evidently. I’ve made too many pancakes. Get a fork and come help me eat them.”