Her Desert Treasure (Entangled Ignite) by Larie Brannick Page A

bite Meg took ratcheted up Jake’s awareness of her. The heat in the dish didn’t hold a candle to the heat his body was generating. He tried to cool down with a drink of his wine and cleared his throat. “I told you about my family back at the house. Tell me about yours, Meg.”
    She finished chewing the bite in her mouth and swallowed. “My grandfather probably told you most of the story. My parents died when I was five, and I came to Colorado to live with my grandparents, my mom’s parents. Their farm is…was…northeast of here. My grandmother died a couple of years back, and Grandpa sold the place.” She swallowed again. “You know the rest. I don’t have any family anymore.”
    “Meg, I’m so sorry. I...” Jake couldn’t begin to imagine what his life would be like without his family. Even though they did drive him crazy on occasion.
    “Thank you.” She smiled sadly, accepting his sympathy. “How did you know my grandpa?”
    He smiled, thinking about John Clark. “He was a good man, your grandfather. He kind of took me under his wing when I first came to town. I think he could tell I was completely out of my element here.”
    “You’re not a native?”
    “Hardly.” He laughed. “I moved here from Chicago two years ago.”
    “Chicago? I never would have guessed. What brought you to Colorado? And Big Rock, of all places?”
    Where to start? He wouldn’t go into all the reasons he left the city. Meg would probably run far and fast if she knew the truth about him. He was a disappointment. To the people he loved, yes, but mostly to himself. Of course, everyone had tried to reassure him that he wasn’t to blame for the actions of others, but he couldn’t buy into it, not when he knew he’d failed. Maybe it’d been chickenshit of him to leave, but he’d needed the distance. He’d never forget the guilt he felt, but out here, at least, it wasn’t front and center in his mind.
    Front and center now was the woman sitting across the table from him. Even in the dimness of the restaurant, her violet eyes were bright, everything about her was sunshine. Such a contrast to the drab, shadowed life he’d carved out for himself. Her light seeped into his darkness, and he wanted more of it.
    Even if he didn’t deserve it.
    “We took a family trip one summer and kind of discovered it by accident. My mom loves to play the slots, and she’d found out about the casino on the Ute reservation. We made the detour so she could spend a couple hours there and came back through Big Rock. I was hooked. When I heard about the animal hospital coming up for sale, I jumped on it.”
    “Wow. Happy accident.” She sipped her wine. “When did you meet my grandfather?”
    He raised his glass and tipped his head toward her. “I’m getting to that. My plan was to buy the practice and turn it into a horse breeding operation.” He smiled at her raised eyebrow. “I specialize in equine medicine—not a high-demand specialty in the city. I thought this would be the perfect place to get started. But the first day I was here, there were people and their pets lined up at the door. I couldn’t turn them away. When word got around about my knack with horses, your grandfather came to see me and invited me out to the canyon to see the wild horse herd.”
    She sat up in her chair, wine sloshing precariously near the rim of her glass. “That’s right. The wild horses. Grandpa talked about them whenever I called.”
    God, she was so pretty. The sun, or maybe the wine, had given her cheeks a pink glow, and her eyes sparkled with curiosity. He struggled to find his voice. “I’d, uh… never seen anything like it before. You haven’t seen them?”
    She lowered her gaze, the contents of her wine glass suddenly held her interest. “No. I haven’t been back…for a while. From what Grandpa said, the herd migrated here and decided to make the canyon their home.” She looked up. “He said he’d been talking with a veterinarian