Cowgirl Makes Three / Her Secret Rival. Myrna Mackenzie

that she could feel every contour of his body, the hard muscled planes, the desire he felt for her. If two bodies could have produced steam, the two of them would have been enveloped in a mist cloud in a matter of seconds.

      Instead, a horse whickered in the distance. Lily’s and Marta’s voices drifted in.

      Ivy and Noah separated. “I’m sorry,” he said. “One minute I tell you I can’t do this and the next minute I’m grabbing you.”

      “It was a mutual grab,” she said, and his lips quirked up in a smile.

      “I’m sorry about what I said about Lily, but…this ranch is hers. I’m the current owner, but it’s her inheritance. That and the blood that runs through me marries me to this land. And I have a bad habit of linking up with women who anyone with sense could see aren’t made for ranching. That’s my problem—my fatal flaw, I guess—to keep living this situation over and over. I’ve made a vow to remember what I am and what I’m not from now on. I can’t get involved with anyone temporary ever again. Maybe if it were just me at risk…” He looked at her lips again, his eyes smoldering even more.

      “But you have a child,” she said, backing farther away. Because he was right.

      Noah frowned. “Nothing will ever change the fact that Lily’s mother deserted her. And someday I’ll have to help her get past the hurt that comes with that. I can’t put her in the position of losing someone she loves again. There are lots of things I don’t know about parenting, but I know I can’t risk her that way.”

      “That’s why you’re alone.”

      “Partly.”

      She quirked an eyebrow. He shook his head. “I’ve talked about myself too much today. I’d better get back to work.”

      And she, Ivy decided, had better get back to sanity. She’d come here to earn money, to leave her past behind and help herself find a future. She’d promised herself that she was through with men, because men had taken everything she valued and loved. Yet she’d turned down money today and she had practically invited Noah to make love with her when she’d never been the type to take intimacy lightly.

      She so didn’t want to analyze that last fact. So what did she want to do? Or…what smart thing did she want to do?

      But her brain wouldn’t function. She needed to get smart fast. Earn money. Leave. Never come back. It was a mantra she intended to keep repeating. It was her plan.

      “From now on I’m sticking to the plan,” she muttered as she headed back to work. But before she could do that, she had to get past the free workshop she was giving.

      I wonder where Noah will be while that’s going on? she thought. Probably somewhere far, far away. What man would stick around while a bunch of women took over his house to do makeovers?