growled and yanked at the lasso, pulling it from Ange’s hand. He realized only afterward that he’d probably left a rope burn on her palm as he struggled free of the noose, but if Ange noticed she didn’t complain or alert him to the fact. It irked him that he felt a moment of remorse for giving her a second’s pain.
Not when she’d given him a lifetime’s worth.
He stood up to his full six-foot height and straightened his shoulders. He wasn’t the tallest man at the auction, but at her five-foot-four-inch frame, he had plenty of height to glower down at her.
His chest burned with fire but his heart incongruously froze solid as anger sluiced through him like an ice storm in Antarctica.
Ange pushed her hoodie back and whipped off her ball cap, shaking her long blond hair out of their confines. Tilting her chin up, she met his gaze head-on.
It wasn’t the expression of someone who was sorry for what she’d done. She still maintained the same solitary determination as ever, ready to run roughshod over anyone who stood in her way.
He wouldn’t be a sucker twice.
She opened her mouth to speak, but he dug in before she could say a word.
“Ange,” he ground out, his low voice sounding like sandpaper as he leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest, steel walls clamping down around his emotions. No way was he letting her in this time.
“Rowdy,” she said, testing his name. She held out a hand to touch his arm but he grunted and twisted away.
But not before he realized she had a baby in her arms.
A baby.
“Rowdy,” she said again.
His frown deepened at the sound of his name on her lips. It had been such a long time. Her voice was so familiar...and yet, then again, not so much.
He lifted the lasso and shook it under her nose.
“What did you just do?”
Rowdy’s eyes briefly settled on the tightly swaddled infant in Ange’s arms and then he flicked his gaze to her unadorned left hand. He was reeling with shock to see Ange suddenly back in Serendipity after all this time, especially with a baby in her arms.
Why had she come back?
And why now?
She hadn’t come home once since the day she’d left him alone and brokenhearted at the altar. She hadn’t even bothered to attend her own grandmother’s funeral.
And yet now, for no reason Rowdy could guess, she was here, standing in the middle of the community green with a town function going on around her.
Home.
With a baby.
And for some inexplicable reason, she’d somehow finagled things with Jo so she could buy him at auction before the event had even started.
What was with that?
And the craziest thing of all was that she looked nearly as startled about this whole situation as he felt. As if she didn’t know any more than he did about what was happening.
Which couldn’t be true, since she’d set it all in motion in the first place.
Hadn’t she?
It only remained to be seen as to why. What motive could Ange possibly have to want to see him again?
Or at all.
“I—er—” Ange stammered, shifting from foot to foot and lightly bouncing the baby she cradled in the sling. “What do you mean, what did I do? I didn’t do anything.”
He gritted his teeth to keep from snapping back at her. He could still turn and walk away, and not one person in town would blame him.
She’d come home for a reason, and it couldn’t be anything good. If it was only about selling Granny’s ranch to him, well, he and Ange didn’t have to talk face-to-face for that. Their Realtors could handle all the details regarding the transaction and all he would have to do would be to sign the papers and fork over the funds to make it a done deal.
Or was it more complicated than that?
Was Jo somehow involved? Jo had purposefully forced their sure-to-be-stormy reunion into pretty much the most public arena possible, leaving Ange and Rowdy no choice but to speak to one another with practically everyone in Serendipity looking on.
And then there was the mysterious letter Jo had given Ange—the one she’d immediately shoved into the back pocket of her jeans.
What was up with that?
Maybe Jo thought Rowdy and Ange ought to bury the hatchet, so to speak, although maybe that wasn’t the best metaphor to use in this particular situation.
As if he’d listen to anything Ange had to say. She’d ripped his heart to shreds. A reconciliation between the two of them was never going to happen.
Full stop.
Not a relationship. Not a friendship. Nor even acquaintances, as far as he was concerned.
He didn’t think he’d ever be able to completely forgive Ange for what she’d done, but he had put it all behind him. He’d made his peace and had moved on with his life.
Why dredge it up now?
To be completely honest, Rowdy hadn’t been sure how he would feel if he ever saw Ange again—or if he’d feel anything at all.
Well, now he knew.
And he didn’t like it.
As his past rose to meet him, anger and indignation waged a war in his chest, like dueling pitchforks, parrying back and forth, jabbing sharp points into his heart.
Then he took a breath and the stabbing pains morphed into an ache so deep it left a gaping hole in its wake.
How could merely seeing Ange again so easily stoke to flame all the emotions he’d thought he’d tucked away long ago?
He was an even-keeled man. Not much threw him off-balance one way or the other.
Except for one thing—one person.
Ange had the singular ability to knock him off-kilter.
She’d always been able to do that.
In the past, he’d thought that was a good thing.
Now he knew better.
He remembered his helplessness and hopelessness when he watched her ride off on her horse after their wedding rehearsal—one of the matched set of horses meant for them to depart on after their wedding—leaving him quite literally in the dust.
She hadn’t even had the courtesy to look back and wave goodbye.
And now she’d suddenly returned...why?
Rowdy was desperately attempting to corral the emotions stampeding through him like a herd of wild buffalo with a pack of wolves on their heels. It took all his effort to keep his voice low so he wouldn’t startle the baby.
“What’s the deal here, Ange? Why did you buy me at auction?” he whispered, his voice low and raspy.
Her blue eyes widened, her expression sincerely stunned.
Hurt even.
As if she had the right to be.
“Before I answer that question, I think we’d better take Jo’s suggestion and head back to where the picnic basket is located. It’s not a lot of privacy, but it’ll give us a little more than we have standing here. I don’t know about you, but I’m not feeling very comfortable right now with everyone’s eyes on us and all of them listening to every word we say.”
She nodded toward the crowd. True, many had turned back to watch the next bachelor