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straighter.
    “Everyone at the table started laughing, and he shoved out a chair with his boot and told me to sit down. After he sent everyone away, he told me the task he was given. You told him you needed a husband, a cowboy husband who knew how to ranch and liked children. He sweetened the pot by saying you had a twelve-hundred-acre ranch in the Wyoming Mountains that came with the deal, and I would be given half ownership of it. Before I knew what I was doing, or had sobered up, we were driving up to see your place.
    “It is a sweet place. A place I would have picked if I had a choice. Dick said I could stay long enough to heal up and see if I would consider the deal. So I agreed to talk to you.
    “Why marriage?” He continued watching her.
    Bonnie was studying him until the last question. Her lashes lowered, and her slender fingers traced the markings on the table. The waitress brought the pie and tea then, and with the distraction, she took a deep breath and fiddled with the pie before looking up at him. “What did you think would make a woman put the clause in?”
    “I figured you were ugly as sin.”
    She chuckled. “Men don’t want to deal with the children. Three kids are deterrents. Sometimes I am thankful the kids drive away would-be suitors. Because I am divorced, married men think I am lonely and in need of a bed partner.” The white teeth worried her lower lip and her cheeks flooded with color.. “I believe in God. That His standards were set in place to help man. I live by those standards in a world that lives for self-satisfaction. It’s not the popular lifestyle. But it’s mine.” She skittered a glance at him. “What do you believe about God?”
    “When a bull is trying hard to kill you, you get real personal with God.” The thought settled into his head, begging for more consideration. He’d always believed, but he’d not really done much about it. Later. He’d delve into that idea later.
    She put sugar and milk in her tea and stirred slowly.
    He still had more questions than answers, but waited because he sensed she was organizing her thoughts. He had to wait while she ate a piece of pie and sipped some of the tea. With a sigh, she put down her fork and picked up the teacup.
    “I’ve been divorced three years, and I’ve been broke most of that time. When Dick hired me on as the token woman for the construction crew I was barely getting by. Even so, there was always some jerk trying to put moves on me.”
    She looked up suddenly. The disgust in her voice changed to concern.
    “Does this sound conceited?”
    He shook his head. The more she talked, the more intrigued he became.
    “Dick says I whine too much.”
    Baya could hear the man’s voice saying it, but watching her, he had trouble seeing how Dick could be his grumpy old self around her. “Well Ed, the ex, is always taking me to court. He’s tried to prove that I am an unfit parent. That I am not capable of feeding the kids. That I cannot control the kids. And so on and so forth. I go to court at least three times a year—the last episode was over the amount of income tax I g e t back from the IRS.”
    He nodded because he could see something was expected of him.
    She ate another bite of pie, sipped a little more tea, and continued. “My parents played the lottery and they won a little money. They were so thrilled.” She leaned forward, intent on making him understand .
    “So they took my grandparents on a trip to Hawaii. My grandparents owned the ranch in Wyoming. My grandmother married Carl after her first husband, my paternal grandfather, died. She lived with him in Wyoming ever since, and we only saw them now and then. They must have had a great time on their trip. But they never came back. They were on flight 1274, the plane that went down over the Pacific Ocean.”
    Her hands shook as she lifted the teacup to her mouth.
    “I’m sorry.”
    She smiled, the first true smile, which lit her eyes and warmed her face.