When my son got married, I never admitted to anyone that I had inherited my late husband’s ranch. And thank God I kept quiet.

Brooke’s fingers tightened around the edge of her cream leather handbag.

“Mom, we really should finish this first,” she said. “Paul has another appointment.”

Paul swallowed.

He did not look like a man with another appointment.

He looked like a man beginning to understand he had walked into the wrong house with the wrong briefcase on the wrong afternoon.