The Rancher's One-Week Wife by Kathie DeNosky Page B

met. “Why don’t you stay a few more days?”
    “I can’t afford to miss work,” she said, shaking her head. “I only have a couple of vacation days left and I’ll need to use those for the stop in Lincoln County to file the...d-divorce.”
    She stumbled over the word and he would bet nearly every dime he had that she was starting to second-guess her decision. “Can you work from here?”
    She looked thoughtful. “You mean telecommute?”
    He nodded. “The signal here is good, but it’s a lot better over at the main house. You could work from there.”
    “As nice as your boss is, I’m sure he’ll draw the line at some stranger using up all of his bandwidth,” she stated.
    Blake shrugged. “Like I said, he’s not staying there right now. When he had the Wi-Fi installed, he made sure it was unlimited usage with no slowdowns.” He purposely omitted that Blake himself was one of the internet company’s principal shareholders.
    She looked thoughtful a moment before she shook her head. “I didn’t bring my laptop.”
    “Not a problem,” he said, smiling. He knew she was giving it serious consideration and he was determined to convince her to stay on the Wolf Creek Ranch a little longer. “You can use mine.”
    “Are you sure?” she asked. “You might have something on it that’s private.”
    He shook his head. “I only use it for breeding records and to keep track of the cattle we’ll be sending to market. There’s more than enough room on the hard drive for anything you’ll be doing and if you need a special program we can always download it.”
    “I’ll have to call the office on Tuesday morning and explain that I’m going to be working from here for a few days,” she said, her expression thoughtful. “I’ve telecommuted in the past, so it shouldn’t be a problem to set it up. And I’ll need to email one of my coworkers to have her send me a couple of files I’ll need.”
    “Then it’s settled,” he said, refusing to acknowledge just how important it had become to him that she extended her stay. “After breakfast we’ll go over to the mansion and get everything arranged in the office.”
    She frowned. “Blake, I know you say your boss is easygoing and won’t mind, but I’m sure he’d have a big problem with me using his office.”
    “There’s a writing desk in one of the upstairs bedrooms,” he said, thinking quickly. “We’ll just move over to the mansion and you can work out of that bedroom.”
    “That’s even worse, Blake,” she said, shaking her head. “We can’t just move into your boss’s home.” She stared at him. “Who is this man and why do you insist on taking advantage of his good nature so often?”
    He took a deep breath. He should tell her the truth. He’d boxed himself into a corner and he had nobody to blame but himself. If he told her now that he was the owner of the Wolf Creek Ranch she thought he was taking advantage of, she’d think he had been playing her for a fool or, worse yet, that he had been trying to hide his assets from her because of the divorce. But the longer he waited, the worse it was going to be when she did find out.
    Deciding he needed to dial things back a little while he tried to figure out the best time and way to tell Karly he was the man in question, Blake backtracked. “You’re right. We don’t want to take advantage while he’s away from the mansion. But there’s one place that I know he won’t mind you using.”
    “Where’s that?” she asked, seemingly distracted from finding out who the owner was—at least for the time being.
    “There’s a table in the library just off the family room that would be the perfect place for you to work,” he said, bringing his hand up to twine his fingers in her silky blond hair. “It’s quiet in there and you won’t have to worry about anyone interrupting you or you using a room the boss would find objectionable.” He lowered his head to brush her perfect lips with his.