“Goodness, do you have a virus or something?” Sandra asked worriedly.

“I’m just pregnant,” she confessed, and laughed.

“You lucky woman,” Sandra said softly. “I’m too old to get pregnant, and I was too career-minded to even want to, while I was young. I’ve missed the boat.”

Mina put an arm around her. “You can share mine. Would you like the morning sickness or the heartburn first?”

Sandra burst out laughing and hugged her back.

MEANWHILE, CORT was just finishing up talks with the union to finalize a new contract and feeling guilty for leaving his new wife alone with his father at Latigo. He was miserable. He missed Mina. He wanted to go home. But there was a meeting he had to attend with some business leaders in Akron who were involved in the ranch’s real estate holdings. It was a cocktail party.

In the old days, he’d loved mingling with beautiful women—and there were always beautiful women, married or single—and drinking until he felt pleasantly numb. But now, alcohol and other women had lost their appeal. He must, he mused, be getting old.

A gorgeous brunette he’d had a brief affair with latched on to him at the party and he became aware belatedly of the flash from a camera of some sort. But he disregarded it. Someone was always taking candid shots of other people, or selfies, and the room was dark.

A flash would have been necessary. He wondered why most of the affairs he attended were conducted in such dim light. Probably, he said with a silent chuckle, so that some of the philandering went unnoticed.

He hoped his father was behaving himself. Certainly, Mina could call Parker if she needed help with him. But she seemed very capable of handling Vic, even when he was roaring drunk. It was a revelation, watching her do that, with her traumatic background. A lot of her life had been ravaged by the abuses of drunk people, including her own mother.

He’d called her the night before, just to make sure she was okay. She’d laughed and said that except for morning sickness, things were good. Vic had stopped drinking and was actually talking to his ex-wife. She didn’t add that Sandra was there at Latigo, or that her commando group was due to arrive soon. She didn’t have time, because he was interrupted by another urgent business call and he had to hang up. He was impatient with himself for that. He shouldn’t have cut her off. Well, he’d be home soon, and he’d make up for his absence.

He watched one of the single women present trying to interest a very wealthy married man over martinis, but the man walked away. Her eyes lit on Cort and she moved toward him like a slinky predator. He laughed to himself. That type of woman no longer attracted him. He compared this pretty serpent with his sweet homebody of a wife who liked to knit and read romance novels. Mina would never do something like that. She’d never come on to another man at all. He felt good about that. She was just what he needed; a wife he could leave alone when necessary without having to worry if she was running around on him.