The Cowboy Falls for the Veterinarian: Western Romance (Miller Brothers of Texas Book 3)

by Natalie Dean

  “Sure, because you’re a growing boy.”

  “That is what my mom says,” he quipped right back. He liked that she could keep up with him, that his money didn’t seem to have any sort of sway over how she treated him. She challenged his mind and his wit, and sometimes the way she looked at him made him… made him…

  Want to be better.

  Truly, a ridiculous thing to think, especially since she was an employee that he had just met, and yet he was quickly realizing that that was how he felt anyway. There was disappointment in her gaze every time she looked around at the pigs, or at his family’s wealth, which was pretty much the opposite of what he was used to. Her eyes didn’t go wide, she didn’t suddenly start fawning all over him. Yeah, she still very obviously wanted his money, but not for herself. After going over that list dozens of times and re-examining everything, there wasn’t any way she was getting a drop of the money. She just really cared about the animals.

  “I’ve never been here,” she remarked as he held the door open for her, her dark eyes looking around. Her expression gave away nothing, but he liked that too. She was something to puzzle out. Most people were so easy to read, but the veterinarian in front of him? Not so much.

  “I haven’t been coming to the city much the past month or so because of a project I’m working on, but I used to hit this place up at least once a week.” He waved to the host who straightened and headed around the almost desk-like station.

  “Mr. Sterling,” he said pleasantly. “Your usual seat?”

  “Thanks, Max.”

  He didn’t miss how Elizabeth’s eyes went up to her hairline, which was meticulously kept. He couldn’t be sure, but he was pretty certain she had what was called “natural hair” that she kept pulled back into a bun for the most part. He wondered what it would look like if she did any of the intricate braids he occasionally saw or brushed it out into a fully realized afro. She’d probably look too much like a Hollywood star or model, and he imagined ignorant people would take her even less seriously.

  A shame, really. Even if he wasn’t sure what to think of the woman, it was clear that she was relentlessly, painfully confident, and nothing would ever truly get in her way. She was kind of like watching a tornado go by. Beautiful, but a force of nature, and best to stay out of its path.

  “You weren’t kidding, were you?” she asked as the host led them over to a corner table near the back.

  “It sounds impressive, but my usual isn’t one specific place. Rather a set of requests. I like a two-to-four-top table with a clear line of sight to both the door and the bar, but away from the restrooms.”

  “That’s… particular.” Again, her tone betrayed nothing as they sat, the hostess setting down the menus. There was a pause as she said their server’s name and that they would be with them in just a moment, but then the conversation slid right back into place like it was never interrupted.

  “Really? You’ve never had to make a quick getaway when seeing someone unpleasant coming in where you’re eating?”

  “No, but then again, I’ve never dated two people at the same time.”

  Sterling felt his stomach drop, and his gaze flicked up to her face quickly. But her expression wasn’t judging, or even all that sly. Like everything else, it was matter of fact and forthright. “How’d you hear about that?”

  “You know, word gets around. Especially when the upstanding son of a mega-rich family is juggling a few other rich girls at the same time.”

  Sterling sighed. “It wasn’t like that, you know.”

  “It wasn’t? Then how was it?”

  “Madison wanted to go on and get her Masters, but her parents told her she would lose too much valuable time when the goal was getting married and having children. At the time, with Solomon wrapped up in a possible engagement that hadn’t fallen through yet, I was the next best choice to make a strategic alliance with.”

  “Not Silas? Or your oldest brother?”

  Sterling scoffed. “Samuel? Dad would toss himself off a cliff before including him in anything important about the business. As for Silas, he’s too useful. My dad needed someone who he could potentially lose a chunk of his access to and not hurt the day-to-day function of our enterprise. Enter me.

  “I was all set to tank it, you know, no one likes being the spare wheel. Or a bargaining chip. But that Madison, she’s a keen one. She could tell I wasn’t really interested, at least not in the way I was supposed to be.”

  “And what way is that?”

  Sterling shrugged. He didn’t know why he was spilling his guts to a stranger, exposing the messy parts of his private life, but he didn’t want her to think he was someone who juggled multiple women just for fun.

  “You know, all roving hands and pressuring someone to go farther than they want. Don’t get me wrong, I like flirting. I like banter. I even like looking at very pretty people. But I’m never going to be that type of guy. I don’t want sex for the sake of sex, or pleasure for just the sake of pleasure. All seems a bit hollow, you know?”

  “That’s not a bad thing, you know that, right?”

  That wasn’t quite the response he expected. He thought she might say something was wrong with him or ask if he’d been traumatized as a kid. Unsure what to say, he just shrugged. “Depends on who you ask.”

  Her full lips pressed tightly together, as if she wanted to say something in particular, but in the end, she just sighed and moved on. Curious.

  “So, this Madison could tell all that?” she asked.

  “Well, maybe not all of it, but enough to find me in private and ask if we could go through the motions long enough for her to sign up for grad school and get started, all under the guise of me wanting to make sure anyone I married was an ‘appropriately educated candidate.’” He couldn’t help a wry smirk at that. “Which is hilarious considering I only barely have my bachelor’s. But anyway. It worked. She started school, her parents laid off of her and set her up all pretty, and we pretended to date.”

  “So, where did the others come in?”

  “Like I said, Madison was smart. And desperate. I don’t think there’s anyone quite as wily as a desperate, intelligent woman, and apparently that gene ran in her family because she and her sister approached me together about three months in.

  “You see, Valerie was a lot like Maddy, except she didn’t want to go to school. She just wanted to travel, see the world. Her father was eyeing some oil tycoon’s son to set her up with, and I got the feeling she was about as interested in any romance about the same as you might be interested in a stubbed toe.”

  “I don’t get it. Arranged marriages aren’t a thing in this day and age, right? But you’re really making it seem like a thing.”

  Sterling blinked at her for a split second. Arranged what? “I… I wouldn’t use those words. All of us can say no at any time. Solomon did, in fact. It’s just that you have to weigh if that ‘no’ is worth the consequences.”

  There was another break as the server approached them, asking them what they wanted to order. Sterling realized he hadn’t even looked at the menu and neither had Elizabeth, so he laughed and asked for a few more minutes.

  He had every intention of picking up his menu as soon as the waiter was gone and choosing something, but then Elizabeth was speaking again, and his whole world narrowed down to her.

  Just her.

  “Consequences?” Her voice was steady, but there was a strain to it. Like she was forcing the neutrality into her tone. “Like… punishment? Did—were… none of you were hit or something, were you?”

  Another laugh. He really didn’t mean to, but the idea of his older, shorter father trying to lay into Solomon was an amusing thought. But when he thought of Maddie and Val, the image was much more sobering. Alright, maybe a laugh wasn’t the most appropriate reaction.

  “No. Nothing like that. At least not as far as I know. But there are other things that can be used for leverage. Positions in the company. Trust funds. Inheritan
ce. For Madison, I knew her father could reach out to his friends and get her attendance blocked from the school she wanted to go to. He could freeze her bank accounts, even though they were in her own name.

  “Sure, she told me that she had been saving up and hiding money away ever since she turned fourteen, but even then, she couldn’t trust that her parents wouldn’t try one of their connections to keep putting pressure on her until she dropped out.

  “Even Solomon, who basically was the golden child of our family for five years, got a temporary hell rained down on him. Father sent him to deal with the most taxing clients, doubled his workload, fired his assistants, yelled at him all the time. Honestly, I thought my brother was beaten until Frenchie came along and apparently gave him a spine again.”

  “Frenchie?”

  Sterling waved his hand. “Long story, maybe another time. Point being, no, they’re not arranged marriages, just negotiations. All of us have to walk the fine line of being our own people and keeping our parents happy.”

  “And the three of you figured you fake-dating both of them would be walking that line?”

  “Well yeah. You see, what our parents hate the most is any sort of deliberate rebellion. Telling them no. Cause, ya know, even though we’re adults, we’re not allowed to say no.

  “But if it turns out that a big alliance falls through because their son is just a cad of a young man, doing what any ‘red-blooded young man would do given the temptation.’” He used air quotes for that one, just to make sure Elizabeth knew what he thought of that particular line of thinking. “That’s much more acceptable. Sure, I got in plenty of trouble, but it lasted about a week as opposed to Solomon’s months, and I’ve pretty much eliminated myself from any future consideration. Maddie is almost done with her degree now, having to ‘take a break from romance to heal her broken heart,’ and as far as I know, Val is still abroad, discovering about herself after I nearly ‘turned her against her own sister.’ It really worked out even better than we could have planned.”

  Elizabeth shook her head, letting out an incredulous sort of breath. “You know how crazy this all sounds, right?”

  Sterling shrugged. “It’s a different world, I guess. I’m sure there are things about your life that would seem insane to me.”

  Her somewhat disbelieving expression shifted into a wry sort of grin. “Oh, of that I am absolutely certain. But speaking of insanity, can you explain to me how any sort of burger is worth twenty-five dollars?”

  Sterling found himself staring at her again, trying to figure out if she was being funny in that dry, sarcastic way of hers. But her expression stayed steady.

  “Is that bad?” he asked. “You’re kidding, right?”

  She had to be joking. He liked the grill because it was cheap and fast. He and his brothers could eat out for usually around a hundred or so, maybe two hundred if all seven of them went. But that hadn’t happened since they were teenagers and preteens. In fact, he didn’t think he’d ever gone to a restaurant with his whole entire family in over a decade.

  “Aren’t you?”

  More staring and it was getting to be downright awkward. Clearing his throat, Sterling looked from his menu to her. “What would be a normal burger price?”

  “For every day? Never more than five bucks. If I’m treating myself out, twelve dollars, but that’s pushing it.”

  It was his turn for his eyes to go wide. “Twelve bucks is a treat?”

  He spent more than that on coffee when he went to the city. And he didn’t even really like coffee.

  “Look, going out at all is a treat for most people, and something I haven’t been able to do since I graduated. I’ve got to save up to get a new car, since you’ve seen firsthand how mine is falling apart. Which, you know, is hard to do now on top of student loans.”

  Ah, Sterling understood that. Of course, his parents had paid for his school, but he had plenty of acquaintances in his major who’d had to take out exorbitant loans that they’d be paying on until the day they died.

  He didn’t understand that, of course, considering the Bible itself said that loans with interest were a sin, but he never really took the time to think about it.

  “How much do you owe?” he asked before he could think better of it.

  “About ten thousand. I was really lucky and landed a lot of the scholarships that I applied to. A lot. It was practically a job, really. Although it’ll be more like thirty thousand when I actually pay all of it off, due to those predatory interest rates.”

  If he was like his father, Sterling would have told her that she could have just not taken them. But how else was she supposed to become a veterinarian? If she wanted a good job, she had to invest, and if her family didn’t have enough to invest, then what else could she do besides get loans?

  “Only 10K?” he asked with a laugh. “Why draw it out then? Just pay it off.”

  And she was staring at him again with that look. “Just pay it off?”

  “Yeah. I know drawing things out can raise your credit, but if it’s gonna cost you three times as much, just pay it off.”

  “Just pay it off,” she repeated for the second time.

  “I mean, you’re a vet, right? Why are you saying it like that? I saw the average salary, that would be easy for you to pay off in a year and still buy a new car.”

  She choked on her water, setting the glass on the table with a thunk. “Just pay it off. Just pay it off, he says,” she rasped around her coughing. “People don’t just ‘pay off’ loans like that willy-nilly.”

  “I… I’m not understanding.”

  “Look, I just graduated, and it took me about seven months to even get a job, and I certainly didn’t have the best pay rate working as a secondary vet at a family clinic in the city. A clinic I was fired from, by the way.

  “I’m still paying off my mother’s funeral, trying to help my father whose retirement is barely enough to cover his bills, and then pay all of my own bills.

  “So not only is it not easy to ‘just pay it off,’ it’s not practical. It wouldn’t be practical for most people.”

  That didn’t seem right. Her father’s retirement couldn’t pay his rent? Where was he living? And she’d been fired? No wonder her face had grown pale when he’d offered her a salary in the 80K range.

  But still, it was only ten thousand dollars. He’d spent double that on a short vacation. He couldn’t imagine that kind of money being out of grasp. It didn’t make sense.

  “Fine, I’ll just pay it off here and now, if it’s such a big thing,” he said.

  She froze, her eyes going wider than he had ever seen, and they had gone plenty wide already in the conversation. “What?”

  “Maybe it’s not practical for you, but it’s nothing for me. So, I’ll just pay it off for you.”

  “That’s not a nice thing to joke about.”

  He didn’t like that look across her face. One that was a mix of surprise, distrust and hurt. That wasn’t how she was supposed to react. If he was doing something she couldn’t, she should be happy, right? It wasn’t like it was inconveniencing her. His expense account got about twenty thousand added to it every month, and most of the time it sat there, barely used. And that wasn’t counting his personal salary or the money from the investment portfolio Silas had built for him.

  “I’m not joking. I’m serious. If it’s a trouble for you, let me do it. I promise you; I won’t even notice the money’s gone.”

  He supposed he couldn’t blame her for being skeptical. His father would have an apoplexy if he knew his middle son was giving money away. But surely that had to convince her that he was genuine.

  Her expression slowly slackened, and she picked up her glass of water, taking a long drink. Sterling could feel it; it was the moment he was going to sweep in just like Silas had with Teddy and save the day. Then he would be the good guy, the hero, and maybe people would recognize that he was worth something too.

  “I…” she said slowly, as if she
was thinking very hard on what to say next. But that next word never came. She sat there, blinking slowly, before suddenly standing and walking out.

  …what?

  Sterling was up and after her, laying a handful of bills on the table for the trouble. He caught up with her outside, walking purposefully towards the parking lot.

  “Hey, Elizabeth! What’s going on? Would you please stop?”

  To his great surprise, she did, turning to face him. “You just don’t get it, do you?”

  Sterling pulled up short in front of her, feeling like he had failed some sort of test. “Get what?”

  “Why I could possibly be upset.”

  He looked around, over her head, at their feet, trying to find his usual smooth, charming self. But that guy was gone, leaving him fumbling for an answer.

  “No. I don’t get it.”

  She took a deep breath. “Okay. Let me explain. I know you probably meant well, or at least didn’t mean to harm me, but how you said things… set me off, I guess. First of all, I was jealous. Things are so easy for you. Easy enough that you wouldn’t even miss ten thousand dollars. Meanwhile, I won’t buy anything brand name at the grocery store, hoping that somehow all the cents will add up to fill my gas tank.

  “I was embarrassed. I’m a grown woman, and I’ve fought so hard to end up where I am. But I’m struggling and barely getting by, and you have so much. It’s hard not to feel embarrassed. It’s also hard not to feel patronized. I worry day and night about those loans. I worry every single hour about money. And yet you’re here saying you’d pay it off just because. Something that could destroy me wouldn’t even make you blink.

  “It’s just so unfair. I work hard. My father works so hard. My mother died while working two jobs. But there you are, and here I am, just because you had the luck of being born into a rich family and I didn’t.”

  Sterling didn’t know what to say to that, his mouth going a bit dry. Sure, he knew there were poor people, folks who struggled, but he’d always thought that those who were truly impoverished were there due to bad decisions. But Elizabeth was making it seem otherwise.