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“Thank you. I miss them so much. Well, that left me the sole heir of the property in the west and a little bungalow where I grew up in Pennsylvania. My kids are amazing, bright and creative. They are my world, but they haven’t adjusted to the divorce well. I need help with them. Placing them in a coal-mining town isn’t going to help when I have to work all day. If I worked the ranch, I would be at home. There would be plenty of space between them and the nearest neighbors. I might be able to raise them right. But there are complications.”
    “The ex?”
    She nodded. “I haven’t told the children we inherited the Wyoming property. They’ve never been there. If I told them, they would tell him, and he’d have me in court trying to dispense with it and get money for himself. Also, the only way I can leave the state is if I am married. The courts would look on my life as being more stable than his and most likely award me out of state custody.”
    He thought about that as he washed down another piece of pie with hot coffee. “What about the Pennsylvania property?”
    “I was thinking about moving there. But he already said he didn’t want me to move there with the children. So why not move to Wyoming instead?”
    Baya shared the grin and waved the waitress over to refill his cup. He ate more of the pie and sipped the fresh coffee. “You are formidable. However, you could hire someone to run the ranch.”
    “That wouldn’t stop Ed from going to court to try to make money off it. With Ed, it is a case of what is Ed’s is Ed’s. What is mine is Ed’s. What is the children’s is also Ed’s. His selfish greed is what ruined the marriage. As I said before, it would make the courts look favorably on the move if I had a stable home life. It would stop Ed from acquiring it if my husband owned half of it. Besides....”
    She was tracing the table again. He realized she was trying to still her trembling fingers. “I want men to leave me alone. I need someone. But how do you weed out the bad ones from the good ones? Why not just make an arrangement, half the ranch for half the work? You know what you are getting going in. This way there are no surprises.”
    “Don’t you believe in love?” He knew his views about love and clamped his lips tight shut before revealing them. She was one fine looking woman, and here she sat, bartering for a husband.
    She gawked at him in disbelief. “I’m thirty-four. I’ll be lucky if I get these kids raised in time to die.”
    He rubbed his hand over his face and then leaned on the fist. “What exactly do you mean when you say you need someone?”
    “I don’t know squat about ranching. I don’t even know whether you can make a living ranching. Is it like farming? Farmers are losing money hand over fist. I don’t want to make a fortune. I just think it would be a good thing to raise the kids in a rural atmosphere.”
    “All this for the children?”
    Her nod was a little hesitant.
    “Why marriage?”
    “I told you—”
    He raised a hand acknowledging her need for a stable home life. “You just said you needed someone, but I’m getting mixed signals. You say you want to get rid of the ‘suitors’ because you cannot differentiate which are good and which are bad. That means you need a man.” He paused as her look became guarded and she lifted a defiant chin. “You want a man equal to you, who treats you as an equal?” He paused again.
    Slowly she nodded. “The kids need a father. I don’t have a clue how to raise a boy. I’m afraid I’ll have a resentful hate-filled son when he hits the teen years. Ed’s contribution to raising them is to blame me if things go wrong, and the kids are beginning to do the same. That’s why half the ranch was offered as a—a partnership. I need someone who will help raise the kids properly, with respect and dignity.”
    He watched her over the rim of his coffee cup as he took a long swallow. “What do you want out of the