The Gilded Chain

With a pained gasp, Callie Taylor ripped the expensive cream card and blinked hard against the thick tears that started to drip down her cheeks. Fe

Her room was covered with painting canvases, sketchbooks, and palettes with half-dried paint smears. For years she’d painted her dreams, and those dreams had always included Fe

The moment Wes Thorne, Fe

I’m happy for them…but…

Disgust came after, weighing her chest down like invisible stones. She shouldn’t be jealous of Hayden, not when she cared so much about her friend. But the thought of watching her get married to Fe

Footsteps on the stairs drew her attention. Had her father come up to check on her or was it Wes? When Wes had shown up at the Broken Spur a few minutes ago with a letter from Fe

God, I’m such a fool. How could she have been so blind as to not see that while Fe

Whoever had come up the stairs now knocked on her bedroom door. Pull yourself together, she told herself, and using the back of her hands, she wiped away any evidence of her tears.

“Who is it?” she called out, desperate to hide the way she was crumbling to pieces.

Her dad couldn’t see her like this. He’d only just gotten home from the hospital after his heart attack a month ago, and seeing her hurting wouldn’t do him any good. He was supposed to be resting, letting the new ranch hands and construction workers handle all the heavy lifting and major work. Not that Jim Taylor ever understood the idea of resting.

“Callie, it’s me, Wes.” Wes Thorne’s voice was soft on the other side of the door, as though he was trying to be nice. He wasn’t nice. He was a wolf, a predator. She’d figured that out the moment she had first laid eyes on him when he and his sister, Hayden, had shown up at the ranch to tell Fe

“Go away,” she called out. When there was no sound of retreating footsteps, she crept over to her bedroom door and opened it just a crack. She came face to face with an expensive suit shirt and an immaculately tied silk tie. The man always looked like he’d walked out of a Vanity Fair magazine ad. Raising her gaze up his chest, she saw his throat, then his full lips, and finally his cobalt blue eyes.

Wes, the harbinger of her own personal doom, stood there, worry knitting his brows as he gazed down at her.

“Are you all right? I thought I heard…” He studied her, probably seeing her red eyes. The last thing she needed was his pity.

“I’m sorry.” She shoved past him, escaping her bedroom and his assessing gaze as she ran down the stairs, tears almost blinding her vision. She had to get out of here, get away from him, from her father. She wanted to find a quiet dark place and curl up in a ball to lick her wounds, not handle twenty questions from men who didn’t have a clue what she was going through. Have to be alone. Have to.

She hit the bottom of the stairs and passed through the living room just as her father appeared in the doorway of the kitchen.

“Callie, honey, you okay, sweetheart? You look like you’ve been crying.” Jim started toward her, but she held up a hand.

“I’m fine, Dad. I just need to go for a ride, okay? I’ll be back in a few hours.” And without another word to him, she rushed out onto the small porch of their ranch house.

Even as the fresh Colorado mountain air hit her lungs, it wasn’t enough. She still couldn’t breathe…She needed space, distance, to clear her head. She hoped both Wes and her father would leave her alone. Wes would hopefully focus on what he always did. Business. If he stayed close to the new cabins being constructed she could avoid him.

Something about him u