by Marin Thomas
“And…?”
“There’s phosphate in the ground. Plenty of it.” She offered a small smile. “The check won’t bounce.”
Matt’s eyes glazed over as he stared into space. Amy shivered despite the warm wind. “Oh, God,” she whispered, pressing her fingers against her mouth. “You didn’t leave because of the money, did you?”
Bleak blue eyes settled on her face. “No.”
Pain sliced through her chest, piercing her heart. Had she misread his actions? “You really don’t love me.” Tears blinded her. The girls…She had to get the girls and Moose and leave before she fell at Matt’s feet and begged him to…Love me.
“You’re wrong, Amy.” Hoarse emotion coated each word when he spoke and she didn’t have the strength to look away from his handsome face. “I left because I love you,” he insisted.
“I don’t understand.”
Shoving a hand through his hair, he shuffled sideways, putting more distance between them. Amy struggled not to lose hope.
“I wanted you to believe I left because I thought you were after my money.”
“Why?”
“Because if I told you the truth about the poker game in Pocatello you’d stop loving me.”
“I never said I loved you, Matt,” she pointed out.
“Maybe not with words. But you said it when you touched me. When you whispered in my ear and breathed against my neck. When you took me inside you.”
Heart melting, she whispered, “I’m listening.”
Damn it, telling the truth shouldn’t be this difficult…this painful. Matt would rather suffer the effects of a mean-faced rodeo bull whipping him around like a rag doll than confess his sin to the woman he loved.
The woman he’d given his heart to.
The woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
“Every cowboy on the circuit was aware of Ben’s gambling addiction, including me.” Matt swallowed hard. “I’m not going to pretty it up, Amy. I suckered Ben into a card game because I knew I’d win and he wouldn’t be able to pay up.”
“Why would you do that?”
“I’d heard that he owned Son of Sunshine. I knew about the stud and decided he’d be perfect for my mares. So I made sure Ben lost a lot of money and then I offered to cancel his debt to me in exchange for SOS’s stud services.”
Matt examined the ground for a long time—until the blurring dust settled. Then he stared Amy square in the eye. “I keep telling myself that if I had known he was married and had kids I would never have put him in that position. But I can’t say for sure it would have made a difference. I was determined to retire from rodeo and go into the horse-breeding business and I doubt anything would have stopped me that night.”
He forced himself to stay put when he’d rather walk off.
“All those nice things you did…babysitting the girls…the money you loaned me…Moose…was out of guilt?”
“Don’t you get it, Amy? If I hadn’t coaxed Ben into that card game—”
“Some other cowboy would have, Matt,” Amy argued.
“That doesn’t excuse my behavior, and then to top it off, I had the audacity to fall in love with the widow of the man I wronged.”
“If I wasn’t already a widow when you’d arrived at the farm, Matt, I was on my way to becoming a divorcée.” After a dramatic sigh, she said, “I’m probably going to say this all wrong, but first let me assure you that I truly grieved over Ben’s death. Not as a woman who’d lost her soul mate or her beloved husband. I grieved over Ben losing his life in such a senseless way.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Ben was the father of my children, but there was no abiding love between us. We never had a strong marriage and he died before I got up the nerve to tell him I’d contacted a lawyer to file for a divorce.”
Amy was mistaken if she believed her planning to divorce Ben would ease his guilt.
“Matt, whether you and I work out or not, you must accept the fact that Ben had a gambling addiction. That was his problem. His responsibility—not yours.”
“But I’m a better man than I showed myself to be that night in Pocatello. I’m not proud of my actions. I wasn’t raised to take advantage of other people.”
“No one’s perfect, Matt. If I would have allowed Rose to get a dog a while back then maybe Ben wouldn’t have—”
“The rat would have remained in the barn whether Rose had a dog or not.”
After a stretch of silence, Amy said, “It’s time we both forgive ourselves and move on. I don’t profess to have all the answers to life’s questions, but maybe the reason for Ben’s death is as simple as…it was his time to go.”
“Maybe,” Matt admitted. “But that doesn’t entitle me to what belonged to him.”
“Ben never wanted me or the girls, or else he’d have treated us better.”
Matt struggled to absorb the words and make sense of them. Maybe Ben hadn’t loved Amy the way he should have, but Matt was sure the man had appreciated his daughters. He glanced toward the house where Rose and Lily had gone. He loved the two little girls as if they’d been born his. Wouldn’t Ben want his daughters to have a father who loved them?
Would loving Amy and the girls be enough to make amends for his sins? God, he hoped so because he didn’t have the strength to walk away from them. “I love you, Amy. I love Rose and Lily, too. If you can forgive me for what I did to Ben, then I want us to be a family.”
He waited for Amy to throw herself into his arms, but she didn’t. His heart stopped beating. Was it too late? Had he screwed things up so badly that she refused to give him a second chance?
“If you’re proposing because you feel guilty, I won’t marry you.” She propped her fists on her hips. For all her bravado, Amy failed to hide the love for him in her eyes.
He’d be a fool to walk away from a future with this woman and her daughters. As if gentling a skittish filly, Matt caressed Amy’s cheek, rubbing his thumb back and forth. “I’m proposing because I love you and I don’t want to live without you and the girls.” He leaned his forehead against hers and breathed in her subtle scent.
“We’re not very good at saying the words, are we?” she whispered, nuzzling her nose along his cheek.
“We’ll get better.”
“I’m sorry that woman hurt you so badly, Matt.”
“I’m not.” He brushed a fleeting kiss across her lips. “If I hadn’t been wronged, I’d have never discovered real love.” Another kiss. “The real love that’s standing right here in front of me.”
Amy cuddled against Matt, wrapping her arms around his waist. “I love you, Matt. And it’s not because you’re—” she smiled “—a hottie, as Rose’s bus driver claims.”
Hottie? Good God, he hoped his siblings didn’t get wind of that nickname. He’d never live it down.
“I fell in love with you,” she continued, her quiet words a balm to his battered soul, “because you bought Silly Nillys at the grocery store for the girls. Because you picked up Lily’s marbles off the bathroom floor. Because you cared enough about Rose’s secret pet to try and trap Sophia instead of using poison to get rid of her. Because you bought Moose to heal Rose’s broken heart. Because you paid for a sterile stud so I’d have a fighting chance to keep my farm.” She paused to take a deep breath. “But you know why I love you most of all?”
He shook his head.
“Because you make my heart sing. The grass looks greener. The sun burns hotter. My flowers bloom longer. You make my world so much brighter and richer.”
“If you give me the chance, Amy, I promise I’ll show you every day, every hour, every minute how much I love you and the girls.”
“I’ll give you more than a chance, Matt. I’ll give you forever.”
“MAMA’S KISSING MR. MATT,” Rose announced from her post at the door.
“Mer Matt. Mer Matt.” Lily clanged her sippy cup against the screen.
Dominick joined the girls, lifting L
ily up and propping her on his hip. “Now you can see better.” He and the girls watched the couple’s embrace.
Guess my son has found himself a new family. Dominick was both sad and happy. One by one his children were leaving the nest.
“Another wedding is on the horizon,” Samantha murmured, peering around her father’s shoulder. She stroked Lily’s blond curls. “You’re such a cutie.”
Lily grinned around the mouthpiece of her sippy cup.
“My sister poops in her pants. That’s not very cute,” Rose said.
Dominick chuckled. “Rose, you and I are going to get along fine.”
“Okay. If you say so.” She opened the door and stepped onto the porch. “I’m going see if Mama’s gonna marry Mr. Matt.”
“Would you like Mr. Matt to be your father?” Dominick asked.
The little girl’s hazel eyes sparkled. “Oh, yeah. He’s the best. He never told Mama about Sophia.”
“Who’s Sophia?” Samantha spoke.
“She was my pet rat. But SOS squashed her. That’s why Mr. Matt got us Moose.”
Lily squirmed in Dominick’s arms and he set her on her feet. She followed her sister outside.
“Idaho’s a long ways away,” Dominick murmured.
“So is Detroit, Daddy, and you’ve gone to visit Duke and Renée twice since they married.”
Dominick wrapped an arm around his daughter. One day soon he hoped Samantha would find her own happy ever after. He smiled as his soon-to-be granddaughters and their sidekick, Moose, raced toward the corral. The group hugged, their laughter and the dog’s barking stirring up more dust than an Oklahoma twister.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-3165-2
A COWBOY’S PROMISE
Copyright © 2009 by Brenda Smith-Beagley.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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*The McKade Brothers
*The McKade Brothers
*The McKade Brothers
**Hearts of Appalachia
**Hearts of Appalachia
**Hearts of Appalachia
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen