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you’ll fall in love with it too, if you give it a chance.”
    Karen doubted that. Still, she couldn’t refuse her grandmother’s request. She was, after all, a charity case.
    “All right,” she answered. “Give me a few minutes to change.”
    “I’ll tell Dusty.” The elderly woman smiled. “Give him a chance too. You’ll find him a very nice young man.” As she spoke, she took a step backward, then closed the door after her.
    “Oh, right,” Karen answered to the empty bedroom. “A real peach of a guy.”

    Dusty wasn’t surprised that he had to wait. A princess had to make a tardy entrance in order to be properly noticed. If it wasn’t for the promise he’d made …
    “Ah, here she is,” Sophia said, drawing his attention to the front door.
    He couldn’t deny that Karen looked spectacular in her designer jeans and boots, her silky blond hair tucked beneath a short-brimmed baseball cap—designer variety, of course. Only a dead man wouldn’t have noticed how pretty she was.
    But that didn’t change the way he felt about her. She didn’t belong at the Golden T, and in his humble opinion, the sooner she went back to California the better for all of them.
    “Dusty, take her up to the bluff overlooking the gorge so she can get a good view.”
    “Will do,” he answered Sophia.
    Karen came down the steps, moving with the same reluctance Dusty felt. Her gaze flicked between the two horses, then shifted to him. “Which one is for me?”
    “This one.” He handed her the reins to the paint. “Need a hand up?”
    “No, thanks.”
    She spoke the truth. She mounted the horse without difficulty. Dusty swung into the saddle, gathered the reins, then said, “This way.”
    He nudged the gelding with his boot heels, and they set out. They rode without speaking for a good thirty minutes, the horses following a well-worn trail.
    It was Karen who broke the silence. “How much of the land belongs to my grandmother?”
    “Not much anymore.” He glanced at her. “Sophia’s had to sell off a lot as she got older. The Taylors weren’t ever rich, from what she’s told me. They never would have mixed with your crowd.”
    She stopped her horse.
    He did the same.
    Their gazes clashed.
    “Why do you dislike me?” she asked.
    It was a fair question. He decided to give it an honest answer. “I suppose because of the way you look down that pretty nose of yours at everything and everyone.”
    “But I don’t—”
    “Yes, you do.”
    She looked away, releasing a sigh.
    “This country isn’t for the idle or the pampered, Miss Butler. Your grandmother’s worked hard for everything she has. That may not be much, materially speaking, but Sophia Taylor is a rich woman in all the things that count.”
    Karen continued to stare at the rolling, sagebrush-covered valley.
    “So why’d you leave California if you didn’t want to be here?” he asked. “And it’s plenty obvious you don’t.”
    That drew her gaze to him. “She didn’t tell you why?”
    “No.”
    “Because I had nowhere else to go after my father … died.”
    For just an instant, her superior, aristocratic facade crumbled, exposing the raw vulnerability beneath.
    “I’m sorry,” Dusty said, meaning it. “I didn’t know you’d lost your father.”
    She looked away again, her cool demeanor returning. “I’d rather not talk about it. Can we go on now?”
    “Sure.” He clucked to his horse. “Follow me.”

    Silence returned.
    Neither of them spoke while they finished the ride to their destination—a ridge with a spectacular view of the river plain and the dramatic bluffs to the north of them. At their backs, the Owyhee Mountains rose toward the sky, the peak of War Bonnet Mountain still covered in snow.
    They dismounted, then left the horses with reins trailing the ground.
    “The Birds of Prey Reserve is over that way.” Dusty pointed with an outstretched arm as they walked on a bit farther. “I’ll be taking the boys there this month.