It had been about a week after the gallery’s opening event and they were back on his ranch, once more.  One afternoon when they had just returned from swimming, they heard a car coming up the drive.  Kara glanced questioningly at him, but he seemed just as surprised before he glanced out the window and then frowned with confusion.Kara was not sure if it was business and she was just about to turn and go to her room to allow him some privacy when there was a perfunctory knock on the door and Matthew opened it with much the same expression.“Good Afternoon, we were told that we could find Kara Daniels here?”She froze when she recognized the woman’s voice and she turned back to the door and stared.  It was at that moment that her mother’s eyes turned to her.  “Oh, my dear, you’ve become disabled!”  She cried in horror before she rushed to her and pulled her against her chest with loud sobs.&

He grinned at her. “Come on, let’s go make breakfast.” He stood and held his hand out to her.Kara took the offered hand, but used very little of its strength to pull herself to her feet. She concentrated on her feet when she started walking towards the kitchen, forgetting that she still held his hand.He stopped her with a crooked smile. “Don’t look at your feet.” He said as he lifted her chin with the tip of his forefinger, never releasing her hand.She threw hi

Kara was back at her ranch and she missed the conversations she had had with Matthew. He had only managed to make her love him more. Her days seemed endlessly long without the excitement of knowing she would see him soon. And the silence in her house seemed oppressive, so she avoided it until she could no longer stay outside without raising questions. She would have to automate some things or at the very least get more hands, but she had still not managed to figure out her grandfather’s filing and bookkeeping system. That was probably the next thing she had to set to work on; she could not keep going if she did not know what she had to work with.

Kara tethered her horse at the border and climbed through the fence. She walked a few steps and then went down on her haunches to check the quality of the earth. The soil had good potential, but it had been drained. The land had been severely over-used and it would take a lot of work to get it back to the quality it had once been. But that did not mean that the soil was not good quality. Thankfully it seemed that erosion had not yet set in and could be prevented when the earth was allowed to recover from the abuse. But it did seem like a good buy. She could till the earth and let the land rest through the remaining weeks of the winter with a layer of manure. They just had to kill off weeds for a while afterwards….allow the grass to sprout again and keep the topsoil from eroding with the rains and snow melting and this land could be prime fields for cattle. Hearing footsteps close by, she glanced up and was surprised to find Matthew standing there. She caught her breath for an

“Kara…”“Yes?”“Thank you.”  What was the hesitation for?“Sure…”  She smiled faintly before they ate in silence.  Was that hesitation because he had wanted to tell her something?  No, she was imagining it.  She had fallen for him, and now she was foolishly thinking that he felt the same.  She was not a teenager anymore, why did she have these foolish ideas?  She had learned long before that life was not a fairytale.  Why was she hoping for a fairytale now?Once they had both finished lunch, he automatically helped her clean up.  Kara was thinking how easily they fit back into their ways when she had lived with him and she missed it desperately.“So, show me your pig farm.”  Matthew teased while she finished putting the last things away.She smiled.  “Sure, let’s go.”  She answered before she