Page 76 of Wyoming Heart

“I patched things up.” He cocked his head. “I’m getting married.”

Vic stared at him. “To whom?”

“A sweet, guileless little Wyoming rancher who loves to knit and read romance novels. She wants kids. So do I.”

“Wants kids, huh?” he asked. His smile was cynical. “Is she poor?”

Cort nodded.

“Is she marrying you for your money?” Vic asked sarcastically.

“She thinks I’m just a working cowboy who’s as financially challenged as she is,” Cort said surprisingly. “She likes to cook, too.”

Vic sighed. “Just like your new stepmother. She was a newspaper reporter, but she’s a homebody now. She likes to grow things. Oh hell, I messed up, big-time! She’ll never speak to me again. I’m sorry for what I did to her, but she won’t let me tell her. She said I was only sorry I got caught, but it’s not true.”

“Why did you cheat on her?” Cort asked.

He made a face. “She’s thick with her family,” he said icily. “It got so I hardly had any time with her at all. I thought she wanted me for what I had.”

Cort cocked his head. He was learning things about his father that he’d never known. Vic needed attention, lots of it. When he lost it, he started doing things to make his wives notice him.

“What was your childhood like?” Cort asked abruptly.

“Hell on earth,” came the curt reply. “My father was a drunk, who beat me every time I talked back to him. My mother was rich as sin and never wanted kids. She punished me because my father got her pregnant and she lost her perfect figure. She slept with anything in pants.”

Cort was shocked to the back teeth. “You never told us anything about that.”

Vic sighed. “I was never around to tell you anything,” he said solemnly. He looked up at his son. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I was a hell of a poor father.” He shrugged. “Maybe I’ll get on the yacht and go sailing. If your stepmother calls, tell her...tell her I’m sorry and she can have anything she wants in the divorce settlement.”

“I won’t be here,” Cort replied. He smiled. “I’m going back to Wyoming to get married.”

Vic laughed softly. “Okay. I guess I’ll stay and meet your new wife before I head out to sea.”

“Try to stay sober.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“And don’t fire anybody else,” Cort said firmly.

Vic held up his hands. “I’m reformed.”

“Sure you are,” Cort murmured, but he didn’t say it out loud.

MINAHADCRIEDherself to sleep the first night she was back home. But crying wasn’t going to help her situation, so she got up and threw herself into her work. Writing had always been her solace. When the world fell in on her, writing pulled her out of her misery. It was the one great joy of her life. Well, next to the baby growing in her belly. That was easily on a par with writing as the happiest thing she knew.

She was working away when someone knocked at the front door. Impatient, and irritable at the interruption, she saved the chapter she was writing and went to the front door.

She opened it, and there was Cort.

He expected joy on that pretty face. He was smiling, his pale brown eyes alight with happiness as he studied her trim figure in jeans and a yellow sweater, with her beautiful blond-streaked brown hair soft around her shoulders.

But she wasn’t happy to see him and made it clear without saying a word.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Fine. How are you?”

She hadn’t opened the door an inch farther, and she wasn’t inviting him in. Her eyes were as cold as the traces of snow in the yard.