The Cowboy's Bride

Chapter Ten

“Oh, you meant a ride on horseback,” she said, as he led two horses out of the stable—a handsome roan gelding and a brown mare with black stockings who was fishing around Will’s pockets for treats.

“You ever ridden before?”

“Once or twice.” In truth, she’d spent half of her childhood summers riding horses at summer-long sleepaway camps her parents had shipped her off to. The idea of riding around here made her throat constrict with happiness. It had been years since she’d been on a horse. “I think I can figure out how to get on without your help,” she said, rejecting his proffered hand-up.

His brow went up as she managed to do just that. “You’re full of surprises.”

“A girl has to keep a few. Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.” He mounted his horse, and they rode south through a pasture that didn’t seem to have any boundaries.

It felt good to be back on a horse again, though her body wasn’t used to it. The horsey smell, the creaking leather, the sound of their hooves across the rain-softened field reminded her of how much she missed riding and the feeling of all that power beneath her. The gelding, whose name was Geronimo, was young and full of energy, but well trained, which was a relief considering how out of practice she was.

Cattle and mustangs mingled here and there, grazing on the newly greening pasture. There were lots of babies, both foals and calves, and Isabella couldn’t help but be distracted by them.

“Looks like your mustang herd is expanding,” she said.

“Not my mustang herd,” he corrected, but didn’t seem to want to continue that line of conversation.

They just rode for almost a half hour until they came to a wide, lazy, river that cut through the land like a sidewinder.

“The Yellowstone,” he told her. “Pretty, isn’t she?”

Shewas spectacular and not at all what she’d expected. Somehow the Yellowstone conjured up images of canyons and deep ravines. But here, the river was shallow and wide and had cut its own path, feeding the sage-covered prairie beyond its bounds.

Will pulled up at the bank and dismounted. “C’mon,” he said, ground-tying his horse to graze where they’d stopped.

“Where are we going?”

He untied two cases from the back of his saddle that she hadn’t noticed before. “Fishing. There’s always fishing poles ready at the ranch. You ever fly-fish before?”

“Never.”

“Roll up your jeans. You’re gonna get wet.”

*

Forty minutes later,Will watched her cast the rod out over the water as she tried to find her footing in the rocky riverbed. He’d spent the better part of the first half hour teaching her the ropes of fly casting. It wasn’t a chore for him to stand close behind her and guide her casts, or to hear her laughing at her own efforts. He loved hearing that laugh, remembering how this whole trip had begun, with her sobbing in the back of the car. Whatever conflicts he was feeling about making love to her last night dissipated in the current as they simply enjoyed each other’s company.

Watching her stand in this river of his childhood, her jeans rolled up to her knees, looking less like a Dallas elite and more like a girl he could have grown up with here in Montana, made his chest hurt.

Damn. What was she doing to him? When she’d warned him about the ending of their story it had felt like a sucker punch, even though he knew she was right. She was going. He wouldn’t even be able to finish the drive. One day soon, maybe even in the next day or two, she’d pack up and go. And there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it.

Unless there was.

By the time he’d caught and released three fat rainbow trout her forty-fifth attempt at a cast finally landed farther than ten feet away, and she shrieked with delight. She then promptly lost her balance and nearly fell in the water. He grabbed her by the elbow and righted her but the two of them laughed so hard they both nearly got dunked.

She clung to his arm for balance, looking so pretty in the morning sun he wanted to kiss her again. So, he did. He kissed her with an easy hunger, asking for nothing more.

He loved kissing her. Feeling her open to his lips, respond to his kiss, and even smile against his mouth—it cracked something inside him that had long ago hardened with shell-like resistance to anything approaching what was happening between them. He not only wanted her, he wanted her—beside him, with him, around him. He knew she meant to go but letting her go might be the biggest mistake of his life.

Yet, even as he kissed her there in the river, that little voice warned him “Be careful. Protect yourself. Nothing good happens this fast.”

She broke the kiss, studying his face for a moment, before laughing down at the freezing cold river. “My feet are totally numb. So, I say we quit fishing before I take you down with me.”

“That last cast… That was nearly a professional Montana ranch-girl cast.”

“Thank you, sir. And now, I am giving all those trout I didn’t catch a reprieve.” She waved a regal hand over the current. “I grant you clemency! Swim free! Worry not about my sorry fishing line! As I… hobble back to shore.”

Chuckling, he helped her back to the grassy bank where she collapsed, rubbing her reddened feet. “If we ever do this again, I have one word for you. Waders.”

He sat down beside her on the shore, near where their horses were still grazing. If we ever do this again. But the odds of that were slim, considering how little time the two of them had left together.

She flopped backward on the grassy bank, staring up at the blue, cloudless sky. “It’s so beautiful here. So different from Texas. And yet, kind of the same.” Overhead, a hawk circled on a lazy air current, eyeing them.

Will joined her, lying back on the ground. “It’s easy to forget just how pretty it is.”

“Have you decided what you’re going to do?” She turned her head his way. “About staying or returning, I mean?”

“Maybe it’s not an either-or choice.”

“Really?”

“Maybe. I still don’t know what they’re going to choose. I called Kevin this morning and asked him if he’d be interested in having his wedding here at the ranch if we could work it out and he and Emmaline were over the moon excited about it. So, that was a yes. Now it’s up to the family. It could be the start of something.”

“That’s good, right?”

He nodded. “All of this is a big undertaking. I don’t think the family will do it if I leave. I think that’s kind of the point.”

“The alternative?”

“Sell. I don’t think any of them want that. I just think they want… different.”

“And you?” she asked. “Do you want different?”

“Maybe.” Maybe I do.

For a few minutes, they just lay, staring at the sky. June was one of the prettiest months in Montana, not too hot yet, and winter was firmly in the rearview mirror. The ice was gone on the river, and elk grazed along its banks along with all the wildlife the prairie supported. The air smelled of sage and grass and sweet Montana air.

But the sound he heard next made him sit up to pay attention.

“What was that?” Isabella asked, sitting up, too.

Will got to his feet. “That was a newborn calf. And it sounds like we’d better find it.”

They packed up the poles and got back on their horses, exploring the gullies and stands of scrub trees nearby until they found the source of the crying. It was, indeed, a newborn calf that some cow had recently birthed and apparently rejected. It was alone and in trouble.

“Why would she abandon this baby?” Isabella asked, kneeling down beside it. All black with a white star on its forehead, the calf wasn’t standing, but curled under a tree, crying inconsolably. The fresh umbilical cord was still attached.

“Sometimes, first-time mothers are clueless about mothering. Other times, they know there’s something wrong with the baby. In some cases, there’s just no telling.” He bent down and lifted the calf in his arms. “But we better get this little one back quick or he won’t make it.”

*

“This is thethird calf this season,” Liam said ruefully a few minutes later, rubbing the chilled calf with the blanket they’d wrapped it in as Shay prepared some calf formula to bottle feed it. “Taking care of them is a twenty-four-seven job that none of us has time for. But there’s really no choice.”

“What if you find the mother? Would she take it back?” Isabella asked, petting the calf on the forehead.

“Not likely. And we don’t have much luck with surrogates, unless the timing is perfect. Sometimes, if a cow has just calved, she will take on another. Especially if we can disguise the interloper calf with her own calf’s scent. Not going to happen here.”

Shay said, “Ryan will take a shift. So will I. We can alternate nights.”

“I’ll help,” Isabella volunteered. “While I’m still here.”

Will didn’t look at her, or say anything, but she felt some tension rising between them.

How had she let this happen? Carrie was right. She’d stumbled into something that was going to break her heart again.

The morning’s events played back in her mind over and over, seeing him in his element carrying that calf back to the barn on horseback, fishing like he was born to it. Kissing her. The look in his eyes when he talked about his future. His sharing those things with her at all. Compared to their first couple of days when trying to pull any information from him was a struggle.

“I’ll give Gus Claymore, Ander’s new large animal vet, a call and get him to come out and take a look,” Liam said, pulling her out of her reverie. “Newborn calves like this who’ve been left alone for God knows how long can go downhill quick for a million different reasons.”

Sarah took Isabella’s arm as Shay settled down to feed the calf with a bottle. “Come on back to the house. You’re a guest here. Let me make you some lunch. We don’t make our guests work.”

“But I—”

“No, no arguments. House rules.”

Disappointment filtered through her as she followed Will’s mother back to the house. She was just a guest. A temporary guest. An outsider. And she had no right to long to be something more to this family, a family so unlike her own.

As they reached the house, a truck crunched down the gravel drive. It wasn’t one of theirs. That much Isabella knew. Particularly by the way Sarah tensed up, seeing who it was.

The truck pulled to a stop near them, and a handsome, middle-aged driver removed his hat in greeting. He was rangy and good-looking with silvery-gray hair and a smile that seemed meant only for the woman beside Isabella.

“Morning, Sarah.”

“Hello, Matthew.” Sarah’s posture grew rigid. “What brings you over this way?”

“Just thought I’d drop by, see how you’re doing?” He didn’t get out of his truck. He seemed to be waiting for an invitation. One didn’t seem to be forthcoming.

“That’s very sweet of you, but we’re doing fine,” she said with a tight smile.

“And I also came because,” he went on, “those chickens of mine that my oldest daughter gave me last year keep laying too many eggs for me to eat—me being alone and all—so I brought you some. Hope you can use ’em.”

He handed her a basket full of eggs the colors of the rainbow. Brown, white, green, and rosy.

“Why, thank you, Matthew,” she said. “I-I’m sure I’ll… find a good use for them. Oh, and this is Isabella Stanton, my son Will’s friend. Isabella, this is Matthew Donnelly, our next-door neighbor.”

He reached for her hand through the rolled down window. “When Sarah says next door, she means a few miles down the road. My place butts up to the Hard Eight’s property to the south.”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Donnelly. Will and I must have seen your property this morning when we rode down to the river.”

“No doubt you did. Will’s back, huh?” he said. “That’s good news, right?”

“He is,” Sarah said with a smile. “For now.”

“I see,” he said, allowing a long pause to stretch between them as Sarah twitched beside her. “Well, I better get going.”

“I’d invite you in, Matthew, but we’re in a bit of a crisis with an abandoned newborn calf at the moment. Another time?”

“That’s too bad, sorry to hear it,” he said, clearly disappointed. “Another time. Take care, Sarah. Ms. Stanton.” He touched the brim of his hat.

As he drove away, she noticed Sarah clutching the basket full of eggs with white knuckles.

“He seemed nice,” Isabella said as they walked into the house. “You don’t like him?”

“No, it’s not that,” she admitted. “I do. I just can’t… encourage him. He’s… a widower, like me. He lost his wife, Julie, three years ago. And lately, he’s been doing… that. Stopping by. Bringing me gifts.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“No. It’s all right. It’s just not… I’m not ready to… maybe I’ll never be ready to allow another man in my life.”

“You don’t have to explain. But maybe he’s just looking for friendship. Everyone is a little lonely, right?”

Sarah smiled as they moved into the kitchen, pulling a cast iron pan out of a drawer and setting it on the stove. “Indeed. But I was married for so long to Will’s father. It was not an easy relationship, but that’s probably more than you wanted to know. Anyway, I probably wouldn’t know anymore how to do friendship. Or… the other. I’ve been enjoying my independence and I intend to continue. Besides, it happens there’s a piece of our land Matthew has been eyeing for years. It’s probably just about that.”

That wasn’t how Isabella read that look from him, but who was she to say? Obviously, she couldn’t even figure out what love looked like. And that was her problem.

“You and Will,” Sarah began, buttering bread for grilled cheese sandwiches. “How long have you really been seeing each other?”

“Not long,” she admitted.

“But long enough?”

She smiled. “I really like him. A lot.”

“I can see that. It makes me happy. He’s had a bit of a long road after his injury and… his ex.”

“Understandably,” Isabella said, more a question than anything she knew for certain. But she was curious.

“What has he told you about her?”

“Not much. Just that she divorced him after his injury.”

“That’s not the whole story, of course. I’ll just say that the two of them were never quite right together. It wasn’t a good match. She wasn’t who he thought she was.”

Liam walked in the door, overhearing their conversation. “Why don’t you tell her what really happened? That Will thought they were trying to start a family, but she was secretly on the pill. And also messing around with another guy on his team.”

“Liam—” Sarah warned.

“That he almost put that guy in the hospital and that it was that same guy who accidentally fell on Will’s leg, his own teammate, and ended his career. And his marriage.”

“Liam! It’s not our place to—”

“Why not? She ought to know if he hasn’t already told her. But then again, she also probably knows that sharing his life with the people who love him isn’t really Will’s strong suit.”

Isabella stared at Liam, not knowing what to say or if she should say anything. And was it that obvious that she had fallen in love with him?

Sarah bent her head to the sandwich making and said, “You’ll have to forgive Liam. Spending all his time here on the ranch sometimes makes him forget his manners.”

Liam yanked a towel off the oven handle. “She’s right. Please forgive me, Izzy, for exposing the soft underbelly of the Hardesty clan. And for telling you what Will hasn’t gotten around to yet.”

“I’m sure,” she began, “that he doesn’t know everything there is to know about me either. But I wonder if you know how much he loves y’all? How much guilt he has for leaving you and this place behind to follow his dreams? He does, you know. He’s told me that much. You’re mad at him for leaving. I get that. But you should know he wants to help. He misses you all terribly.”

Liam and Sarah were staring not at her, but at some point behind her. She turned to find Will standing at the kitchen door, his expression clouded. Had he heard all that? Of course, he had.

Her heart sank. “Will— I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

“I can speak for myself.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’ll just—” Embarrassed, she started to duck out of the room.

He put a hand on her arm. “No stay. You should hear this, too. Izzy’s right. I do feel a lot of guilt for leaving you all. And I have missed you. It feels good to be back here. But I can’t apologize for doing the thing I had to do, for playing the game I was called to play. I can’t change the past or the choices I’ve made. And neither can you. Nothing good comes from pointing fingers and staying stuck in our own dark corners. If I’ve learned anything”—he looked straight at Isabella—“it’s that. But for future reference, Liam, if you’ve got a bone to pick, pick it with me. Leave Izzy out of it. Clear?”

She felt heat rise to her cheeks, both embarrassed to be the center of whatever was going on between the brothers and heartened by Will’s protectiveness.

“We’re family,” Will went on, “and if we’re going to get through this, we have to pull together like one. And that means me, staying. Helping. Unless the decision is to sell. One way or the other, I need to know if you’re up for this change.”

“I think,” Liam said, “we’re biting off more than we can chew. We don’t have the wherewithal to finance this new operation you think we can pull off.”

“Because I will. I’ve already secured financing. What I can’t finance, I’ll kick in from my own money.”

“I thought I made it clear,” Sarah said, “that wasn’t an option.”

“It’s an investment for me. For us.”

“It’s a risk,” she countered. “With all the money you made as a player.”

“But if we make it a success, eventually, I’ll get that investment back and then some when the ranch makes a profit. We all will. It’s the only way. So, it’s up to you now. By the way, Kevin and Emmaline are a yes for the wedding here. But that’s up to you, too. If they’re going to save all their downpayments to their vendors, it has to happen this coming weekend. They’re providing everything. All they need is the venue. So, some lights, some cleanup and setup.”

Sarah raised her hand. “Then I say we do the wedding. We do it all. What have we got to lose at this point? This wedding will lead to another, will lead to our next steps. Shay and Cami and even Ryan are already on board. Liam, you want people. Life around you. Maybe this is the answer. We keep the ranch, and we bring the world to us.”

“I can see I’m outnumbered,” he said.

“Without your vote, it doesn’t happen,” Will told him.

“Fine,” Liam said finally. “Let’s do it. See what happens. I’m in if you are.”

“Then I’m in, too.”

Isabella smiled as the two men shook hands, relieved that they’d come to a decision without coming to blows. This was going to get messy for Will, but maybe messy was exactly what he needed to sort out his life. Because living in Dallas and running a limo company seemed far away right now from who he really was.

*

Two days passedin a blur of activity for all of them. By day, it was a team event to ready the barn and backyard area for the wedding between Will’s trips into town to secure the financing they’d need to move forward with the business plan he’d created. By night, he and Isabella were together in his old room, making love or just sleeping in each other’s arms. He found himself anxious to be with her at the end of the day in a way he’d not been with any woman for many years. But perhaps some of that was because he knew their time together was so short.

Every day, when the mail came, she watched for the letter from Lucille and every day her own anxiety seemed to grow. He thought it was because she feared she was imposing on the family, but he’d reassured her a hundred times that wasn’t the case. But the more anxious she got, the more he wondered if she was simply biding her time with him until she had the means to go.

But damn.

He didn’t want her to go. Every bone in his body, every cell wanted her to stay with him. There was, however, another part of him, the part that still caught him off guard sometimes, that had warning bells going off, warning him to protect himself from all that and to listen to that voice telling him she was just licking her wounds with him, and he was just a placeholder until something better came along.

That made the most sense to him, despite everything. Despite the wholeness of her kisses, the way she held him when he made love to her, the time he thought he’d heard her breathe the words I love you as he came inside her that last time. But he couldn’t be sure. And he knew it would be wrong to press it. Said in the throes of passion, it couldn’t really mean anything. Could it?

His phone call to Isaiah was every bit as hard as he’d expected it to be. He was not only letting Isaiah down, but he was also breaking a promise. To his surprise, Isaiah refused Will’s offer to sell him his half of the company.

“No way,” Isaiah said. “We’re partners. Maybe not as we first planned, but we got each other’s back. This company wouldn’t even be without you. So, we can talk about how we’ll work things out, but you take your time doin’ what you gotta do there, and I’ll do things here. And when we figure out the permanent solution, then we work that out, too.”

Touched, Will realized how much he valued his friendship with this man. Through thick and thin, Isaiah had had his back. And that wasn’t ending any time soon.

He paced outside the smaller of their two barns, listening to the cattle in the next pasture talking to their babies. “But no arguments about me paying you for the town car I’ve got here that we’ll need for this operation. You’ll be one short and you’ll need another.”

“I got one less driver, too,” Isaiah said. “Keep it there for now. Like I said, we’ll discuss when the time comes. Right now, I just need to know one thing. Is it just the ranch that’s callin’ you there or is it the girl, too?”

Will rubbed his forehead and stopped walking, holding the phone tight against his ear. “Honestly? It’s both. But I don’t know where it’s going with Izzy. Things are… they’re good, but at the same time, I think maybe she’s just biding her time here. Trying to get over the ass who cheated on her.”

“Is she? She still love the dude after all that?”

“I don’t know. She denies it. But the truth is, I never intended to be her rebound. I never intended any of this to happen at all. But one thing led to the next, and I’m watching her every day wait for her chance to get out. It was supposed to be a straightforward business deal. But that’s not what happened. I don’t—” He ran a hand through his hair. “Hell, I don’t do the rebound thing. With anybody.” I can’t… won’t get my heart broken again.

“You in love with her?”

He wouldn’t answer that question. Because to answer was to commit to something he knew was going nowhere.

“No answer is an answer in itself,” Isaiah said. “So, you listen to me, dumbass. Kaylee stomped on your heart. I know that. But only a fool lets a second chance for love slip by him because he’s dodging a blow he only imagines is coming. So what if you’re a rebound? So what if you found her at a crazy time in her life? If you think you could love her, or if you already do, then you got no choice but to be the rebound. The best damned rebound she’s ever gonna have. Or miss the single best opportunity of your life.”

Will took that in for a moment. This advice from a man who’d been married to the love of his life for years.

“Right,” he said at last, heading back toward the house.

But maybe all that was just wishful thinking.

*

Inside the smallbarn, Isabella knelt beside the newborn calf with its bottle, unintentionally overhearing Will’s side of the phone call with Isaiah. She should have warned him she was there, but then suddenly, he was talking about her, and it was too late.

When she heard him walk back toward the house, she stood, brushing the straw off her jeans, trying not to cry. His words were like a knife, though she knew she had no right to feel that way or imagine he felt what she was feeling as they made love every night, or as their fake relationship morphed into something real. For her.

He felt what he felt. I don’t do the rebound thing. With anybody. Though he was certainly doing it with her. Did he actually think she still loved Theo after everything? After he’d betrayed her in the worst way possible? Humiliated her in front of all their friends? Spit on their relationship in a very public way? And even if Will didn’t believe that, had he convinced himself that she was somehow just using him to get past all that?

Nothing about what she and Will had shared since they’d left Texas felt like a rebound. It had felt like… the beginning of something good.

But hadn’t she predicted this? Someday you’ll judge me for this, she’d told him after they’d made love that first time. And you’ll think I’m fickle. And that was exactly what he was doing.

And what about him? He’d never even told her his feelings—if he had any besides pure lust. She’d even said the words. Once. Quietly, fearfully. But he hadn’t responded. She should have known then. But it was all too soon. For both of them. Too fast. Too unrealistic. He didn’t believe her. But if he didn’t feel it as they made love, if he thought she might be still thinking of Theo while she was with him, what else could she do?

So, what was actually happening? Was he still pretending? Was their relationship still just for show? Could have fooled her. In fact, he had, apparently.

She should have known. Should have seen this coming. Bending down, she buried her cheek against the calf’s warm neck as he sidled up beside her on wobbly legs.

Emotion swelled behind her eyes and trailed down her cheeks. She swiped the tears away with the back of her sleeve. Oh, she’d warned herself to be done with love, hadn’t she? But had she listened? No. She didn’t need a man, any man. She didn’t need Will.

Fine. If he could pretend, so could she. And as soon as her things came, she’d go.

Her mistake.

Her own stupid fault.