Luke raised a brow. “I need the extended version of that explanation.”

She sighed. “I feel like I’m always explaining myself to you. I told you I managed to hold on to my uncle’s ranch. I expanded it while I was in college by doing some website design work.” She held her hand out to the sign on the truck door. “Blaze Ranch. Get it?”

Understanding dawned in his eyes. “Because you burned it down.”

“Just a little joke on myself. Tim is the ranch hand who used to bring the radio to the stables. He was always kind to me, so when I needed someone to help me get the ranch up and running, I hired him. His son Randy works for me when he isn’t attending school, along with several other people.”

“You should come more often,” Tim chided.

“If I had time . . .”

“You need to make the time,” Tim coaxed.

Sarah rolled her eyes.

Luke wondered about the ranch. “Did Sean know about it?”

“He knew I had the land when we were in college. I told him I wanted to build something out of it and he dismissed the idea.” She shrugged. “I should have taken that as a warning of what was to come.” She scrunched her mouth into a derisive frown. “I don’t like being ignored or told what to do, so I built the ranch on my own. If something happened, like my marriage to Sean falling apart, I knew I had a place that was all mine.”

“So when you divorced him you weren’t going to tell him about the ranch?”

“Well, Counselor, I owned it before the marriage, so it wasn’t part of the community property.”

Luke wasn’t thinking like a lawyer but like a man who’d been used for what he had for too long. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”

“She’s always right,” Tim said. “You should get used to that now.”

Luke chuckled under his breath. “It’s starting to sink in.”

Sarah turned shy. “I’m sorry I wouldn’t sell you one of my babies when you called about them. I want to make sure my horses go to good homes.”

“Are you telling me I spoke to you before?”

“Yes. Though I don’t remember.”

“If you’d only sold me a horse, we would have met a long time ago.”

“It’s strange how things work out. It’s like no matter what, we were meant to meet.”

They shared a long look that said so much, because it really felt like the second she stepped into his life, everything felt different and headed in the right direction.

Sarah’s smile brightened. “Want to meet Ace’s new girlfriends?”

He got caught up in her enthusiasm. “I can’t wait.”

They walked to the back of the trailer where Tim and Randy had backed out the horses. Luke stopped, stunned when he saw them. Magnificent. Ace was a gorgeous brown quarter horse stallion, but the ones Sarah had sent him were amazing. One sorrel, the other brown. Sarah walked up to each of the horses and gave them a good rub down their noses and the sides of their faces.