“You about ready for a wilderness feast?” he asked.

She forced herself to smile. “Ready? I’m starving.” Only that wasn’t true. Her stomach was tied in knots, and she wasn’t sure she could eat. Wyatt had to be hungry, though, so she decided to wait until after he’d had his meal before she told him what she’d done. “Where are the condiments? I’ll run and grab them.”

“White cooler,” he told her.

When she returned a moment later, Wyatt had assembled their hot dogs on paper plates, four for him and two for her. She set the squeeze bottles of mayo, mustard, ketchup, and relish on a folded plastic tablecloth that he’d laid on the grass. He immediately began drizzling his choice of flavors onto his buns. Erin sat cross-legged opposite him and followed his lead.

Erin’s appetite returned the moment she took her first bite. They’d worked hard that day, and her body demanded nourishment. Wyatt reached across their makeshift table to dab at her chin with a paper towel.

She smiled and finished the job with her own napkin. “Sorry. I went overboard with the relish.”

He chewed and swallowed. “I’ll have mustard all over my face before I’m finished.”

They both applied themselves to the meal. After they had disposed of the plates by tossing them into the fire, Wyatt pushed marshmallows onto sticks and stood by the flames to roast them. Erin took advantage of the opportunity to study him while he was unaware of her perusal. He was, without question, one of the handsomest men she’d ever met, but his attractiveness went far beyond the physical. He was also one of the most honest and principled men she’d ever met, and he deserved the same level of integrity from her.

To go with their marshmallow desserts, Wyatt made them each another drink, his straight up, hers mixed with just the right amount of Coke. The marshmallows went fast, and Erin soon found herself with no excuse to keep putting off the inevitable. Maybe she was the biggest fool ever born, but she couldn’t lie to this man by omission.

It was nearly dark, but by the light of the fire, Erin could clearly see his face and assumed he could see hers. “Wyatt, there’s something I really need to tell you. And I’m afraid you may be very angry with me when I do.”

He locked gazes with her. “Okay. Hit me.”

“Remember when you told me you had a brush with the law over a woman? It was the day you came to my house while I was throwing away pots of petunias.”

He curled both hands around his cup and rested his muscular arms on his bent knees. “I remember.”

“Do you also remember the day I was at the ranch and helped Uncle Slade repair fencing?”

“Sure. I remember.”

“When I left, you didn’t walk back to the ranch proper with me. I thought we had forged a friendship, and I hoped you would leave with me, but you didn’t, and it bothered me.” Erin’s heart squeezed. She was making excuses for herself, and in reality there was no excuse for what she’d done. But she at least wanted him to understand why she’d done it. “You’re probably going to tell me that my conceit knows no bounds again, but you’d told me that you were attracted to me, and yet you seemed so determined to avoid being around me that I couldn’t help but wonder why. If you were really attracted to me, why would you avoid being alone with me to that degree? It was broad daylight, and we would have been in plain sight.”