Wolf must have misunderstood her dismay, for he said consolingly, “I wouldn’t worry too much. Sloan’s not liable to gamble away the ranch. It’s his heritage, after all. And he’d never do anything to jeopardize his daughter’s future.”

She nodded, yet it wasn’t really the thought of Sloan gambling that distressed her. It was the way they had parted. She tried a careless smile. “I confess I have an aversion to gambling, ever since my father gambled away my mother’s fortune.”

“I heard you were obliged to pay your pa’s debts after he died.”

“Yes. I … was able to settle most of them, but Sloan assumed the remainder when we married. I didn’t realize at the time, but it was a burden he was ill-equipped to handle.”

She felt Wolf’s penetrating gaze on her. “I thought Sloan made a mistake marrying you, but now I’m not so sure. He seems different from the last time I saw him. More at peace with himself.”

“I would hardly describe him as being at peace,” Heather answered bitterly.

Wolf gave a quiet huff of laughter. “You didn’t know him after he lost Doe. He was like a madman then. All he lived for was revenge.”

“Perhaps he has changed in that respect. But he … isn’t happy. I’m not Doe, you see. He loved her so very much.”

“I don’t know about that.”

Heather cast Wolf a startled glance.

“Oh, he loved her well enough, I reckon. They were happy together. But guilt can do strange things to a man. Shade his memory a bit.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think maybe he only remembers the good parts about their marriage, about Doe herself. He blames himself for her murder, and afterward he built her up in his mind. Put her up on some pedestal, like some goddess.”

“Saint,” Heather murmured.

“What?”

“She’s always seemed like a saint to me. An ideal which I’ll never be able to live up to.”

“I think he cares for you a lot more than he lets on.”

Mutely Heather shook her head. Perhaps Sloan had exaggerated the depth of his love for his murdered wife because of guilt, but she couldn’t believe he’d come to truly care for her. Not after tonight, when he’d spurned her love so unequivocally.

She forced a rueful smile. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For trying to raise my spirits.”

His slow masculine smile was dazzling. Heather felt her heart skip a beat at the display of white teeth in his bronzed, striking face. “My pleasure, ma’am.”

The congenial moment was broken, however, by the slow sound of hoofbeats and wagon wheels in the distance. Several minutes later, a buckboard swung into the yard and lumbered to a halt before the back porch.