His Cowgirl Bride

by Debra Clopton

  “Only you would put it that way. But you’re right.”

  They got in line at the lemonade stand and Tacy faced him—missing the feel of his hand when he crossed his arms and tucked his fingers into the crooks. He was looking at her with a strange glint in his eyes, and for a moment she fantasized that he’d tucked his hands tightly into place in order to keep from tucking them around her…. Right.

  Brent paid for two glasses of lemonade, and they started walking toward the open field where the crowd thinned. “So,” she said, taking a deep breath, “have you thought any more about what I said?” She knew she didn’t have to elaborate.

  “Tacy, it’s not that I’m underestimating you. I know you think that, but that isn’t it. I like that you have no fear—”

  “Whoa, I didn’t say I don’t have fear,” she clarified as she stopped walking to look up at him. “I have fear.” Like right now, looking at you. She felt like she was speeding down a dirt road with the lights off. It was exhilarating and scary at the same time. “I said I don’t let fear rule my life. I refuse to let it dictate my actions or choices.”

  His eyes darkened with intensity just before he pulled them away from her and studied the stand of trees a hundred yards away. “You’re a strong woman, Tacy.”

  “Because I make myself be.”

  “You don’t get it. I’m not a softy. I’m no deadbeat, afraid of my own shadow. It’s just that I take care of what I care about—of who I care about. That’s the way my dad brought me up. That’s the reason he and I don’t get on. I let my focus get distracted and went crazy for a year and it cost me. It cost Tina more. I care what happens to you, Tacy, and that’s why I can’t be the one to teach you to break horses.”

  Her heart went to thrumming with his words.

  “Just like your dad and your brothers, I want to see you live for decades to come. A ride on an unbroken horse isn’t worth what would be lost if you got injured or—”

  So they were back at square one. Tacy hung her head and studied her boots. She blinked against the tears that threatened to overwhelm her. Dumb tears. The song “Cowgirls Don’t Cry” played in her head and she swallowed hard. She would not do this. Why did his words hurt her so? She knew she was falling in love with him—had already fallen in love with him. She hadn’t meant for it to happen or wanted it to happen. But it was true. She’d fallen in love with a man she could not have a future with. Sucking in a shaky breath, she lifted her gaze to his and forced her voice to hold steady. “And therein lies the problem. My safety isn’t your concern. It’s mine.” She could easily solve the problem, or so it seemed, by simply hiring someone else to teach her, and then maybe she and Brent could…No, that would only be a bandage on a deeper problem. The man she let herself love had to accept her as she was. Brent didn’t.

  Turning, she walked away, her heart pounding so hard it threatened to burst into a million tiny pieces.

  Chapter Eighteen

  There was food everywhere. Tacy stood beside the tea pitchers and filled glasses with ice.

  “You sure are quiet today,” Lacy said as she filled the glasses with the tea. “What happened yesterday?”

  “Nothing, why do you ask?”

  “Because,” Norma Sue said, pausing to pick up a glass of tea, “after we whupped the grumpy old men, every one of us saw you and Brent making goo-goo eyes at each other. Then we saw you run out of the party.”

  “I was not making goo-goo eyes. We got lemonade together and then I went home.”

  “In a huff,” Esther Mae said as she joined the surprise inquisition.

  Tacy got distracted by Esther Mae’s orange hat, complete with tiny pumpkin tassels hanging from its brim.

  “I was tired,” she said. “Remember, I was the one who had to ride the bike.”

  “You weren’t even winded,” Norma Sue said. “Don’t give me that. You two looked like y’all were having a good time and then, boom, you were out of there.”

  “Looked suspicious to me,” Lacy said, grinning like a lunatic.

  Tacy glared at her and got a teasing wink in return.

  “C’mon, c’mon, spill,” Lacy needled. “You can’t leave the girlfriends hanging here. Y’all had a sweetheart spat. That’s why Brent is conspicuously missing from the festivities.”

  “I don’t know why he isn’t here. The man is antisocial.”

  “As I remember last week, you ran out early and he did, too—”

  “Not as early as he wanted.” Esther Mae harrumphed. “Norma dragged the poor boy out on the volleyball court and wouldn’t let him get away.”

  Norma grinned. “I think he finally sneaked out when I was getting a rock out of my boot.”

  Tacy had never seen a volleyball game quite like a Mule Hollow Church of Faith game. Norma Sue usually wore crop pants with her boots, and many of the cowboys played wearing their starched Sunday jeans, boots and dress shirts. It was a very odd-looking crew, but fun. She hadn’t stuck around last week because of Birdy—or at least Birdy had been her excuse.

  “The point is,” Esther Mae continued, “we sense trouble in paradise.” She wagged her head, making her pumpkins dance.

  Tacy groaned. “What Brent Stockwell does isn’t my concern. We were just getting lemonade.”

  “The man didn’t take his eyes off you the whole time you were riding that bike,” Esther Mae said.

  Tacy gave her an impatient look. “How would you know? You were watching the pumpkins skyrocket past App and Stanley’s.”

  “I glanced Brent’s way,” Esther Mae said indignantly, “briefly.”

  “So fill us in.”

  “Norma Sue, has anyone ever told you that you’re very pushy?”

  “Kind of remind you of yourself, don’t I?”

  Tacy had to laugh. “We cowgirls have to stick together, I guess.”

  Norma Sue grinned. “You’d better believe it. Now why is it that you and this handsome cowboy are still sidestepping around each other instead of Texas two-stepping together?”

  “Why, Norma,” Esther Mae gasped, “that was so poetic.”

  “I don’t date, remember?”

  “Yep, I know what you said,” Lacy said. “I said the same thing. But when Clint came along, I had to change my plans.”

  Tacy gave up. “Brent won’t teach me. He won’t let me on an unbroken colt. I’ve already told y’all I can’t live with that.”

  All three women gaped at her.

  “You haven’t gotten on one of them colts yet?” Norma Sue asked, ramming her hand on her hip.

  Tacy started to toss out a comeback, then stopped. Why hadn’t she?

  “I told you to make fireworks,” Lacy said. “Did you not understand that I meant for you to go over there and get on whatever horse in that corral you wanted to get on? Believe me when I tell you that Sheri and Pace fully expected you, of all people, to push Brent’s buttons.”

  “Sounds just like our Sheri,” Esther Mae agreed.

  “All we’re saying,” Lacy said, “is you aren’t acting like yourself. The Tacy who came to town a few weeks ago would have figured out a way to get what she wanted by now. It doesn’t make sense that you are suddenly complacent and letting him just tell you no.”

  “Unless—” Norma Sue beamed “—there’s a little thang called love goin’ on.”

  Tacy had to get control of this conversation. “Y’all, I came to the churchwide Thanksgiving dinner to celebrate the occasion with my friends—not to get dragged over the coals.”

  Adela appeared through the throngs of people at the food tables. She took one look at Tacy and walked over. “That is the face of an ambush victim if ever I saw one. Are they giving you a hard time?” she said with a knowing smile.

  “We’re trying to help her,” Norma Sue and Esther Mae said in unison.

  Adela placed a willowy hand on Tacy’s arm. “I couldn’t help but notice that Brent isn’t here. I’ve been wondering if something was wrong. Does he have a hard time with Thanksgiving
?”

  Tacy relaxed with Adela. “I think right now he’d have problems at any holiday, but Thanksgiving is especially hard for him.”

  “You don’t say,” Norma Sue said as she and everyone else mulled over what Tacy had just revealed.

  “I think you are a good friend to him. We’ll fix him up a nice big plate of food and you can run it over.”

  Tacy started to protest, stopped and realized she’d already been thinking about doing that anyway. Even mad at him, she still had a need to make him feel better. She just wished he’d get that feeling toward her sometime.

  “Yep, yep! That’s a great idea, Adela,” Lacy exclaimed. “And while you’re there, you can hop on a horse and show that cowboy what you’ve got. Break the mold he’s stuck in.” She cocked a brow and grinned at Tacy.

  Tacy laughed. “You are incorrigible, as my mom would say.”

  “She must have called you that a lot,” Lacy said.

  “Yes, among other things.”

  “I don’t get it,” Norma Sue said. “I see you as a mischievous kid and teen determined to do what you wanted to do.”

  “I was,” Tacy admitted.

  “But weren’t you raised on a horse ranch?” Norma prodded.

  “Yes.”

  “With brothers and a dad who train and break horses?”

  Tacy nodded. She didn’t like feeling pressed. She saw a light go on in the robust woman’s eyes. “Ah, I get it. You don’t want to chance falling in love because you have a problem saying no to the men you love.”

  “No. I came here, didn’t I?”

  Lacy was watching her very closely. In fact, all the ladies’ eyes now drilled into her. “Yes,” she admitted, “it’s true. I came here because if I stayed back home I knew I wouldn’t ever go against what my daddy wanted me not to do.”

  Esther Mae gasped. “And you ran straight into the same situation. Only instead of loving this man, you’ve fallen in love with him and that’s why you’ve put your light under a bushel!”

  Tacy swallowed past the lump in her throat. There was no way she could deny any of this. Not with these four. They were too observant. And they cared about her. “When you love someone, you give up certain things. That’s why I was so determined not to date. I couldn’t take the chance of falling in love because I knew how I would react if the man I fell in love with had a problem with me breaking horses. Or even training them. I knew I needed to have my career well under way before I fell in love. That’s what you do for someone you love, right? You take their feelings, wants and needs into consideration?”

  Lacy’s brow crinkled. “To an extent. But, Tacy, you don’t just give up everything you’ve ever wanted or dreamed of.”

  Tacy dropped her jaw. “Lacy, I see how you look at Clint. Are you telling me you wouldn’t give up your salon if he asked? No, the better word is—if he needed you to? The same goes for any of you. I know how much each of you love your husbands. You’d do whatever you had to if they needed you to.”

  They gave in to that with nods and murmured yeses.

  “But the same is true for my Hank,” Esther Mae declared, an obstinate expression locked onto her face. “He’d do the same for me. When it comes to things like that, we work it out. I’m kind of stubborn myself, and in my early days I was a little hard to handle—I know that may be hard to believe now.”

  Norma Sue rolled her eyes. “Hardly,” she said.

  Tacy had to smile, despite everything. “I can see where you might have been a touch feisty.”

  Esther Mae beamed. “The thing is, we don’t have all the answers.”

  “And they certainly don’t.” Adela smiled. “Come on, everyone, it’s time to give poor Tacy a rest while we give thanks to the Lord for all the blessings we have here in our little town. I believe Pastor Allen is about to begin.”

  Lacy leaned in close. “You’re off the hook for now, girlfriend—but you can bet we’re talking about this later.”

  Tacy chuckled, despite the stomach churning that was going on inside her. As the pastor called everyone’s attention, she focused.

  She was here in this lovely town among all these heartwarming—if overly nosy—people, and she was so glad to be here. God really was great. She had been so blessed in her life. Coming here, she’d been set to soar with her dreams. She’d known who she was—where she wanted to go with her life—and she’d had a plan for exactly how she was going to get there. She hadn’t expected everything to be totally turned upside down from day one. She certainly hadn’t expected to fall for the hardheaded, obstinate man who was at the corrals alone with his colts and his stubborn heart. The pastor asked all those gathered there to bow their heads. In a deep, wise voice he said a beautiful prayer of thanksgiving for all the blessings the people of Mule Hollow had been given. He also thanked the Lord for the gift of eternal life He offers each and every person. As the pastor said his prayer, Tacy said her own. She thanked God for giving her dreams, ability and the grit and determination to see those dreams to fruition…and she thanked him for Brent. It didn’t matter in that moment that knowing and loving Brent threatened everything she’d worked for and dreamed of. It didn’t matter that she was torn up inside. In that moment she simply prayed for Brent.

  Then she prayed for patience, because a storm was brewing as far as Brent was concerned. The ladies had no idea how bad she had it.

  Or how confused she was.

  Tacy was different. She’d been different since the festival when she left him standing in the field. He’d let her go, watched her stomp across the field, skirt the festival and climb into her truck and leave. He’d walked back more slowly and done the same thing. He hadn’t gone back to Pace’s, though. He’d driven around trying to make sense of what was happening between him and Tacy. He knew there was no denying that he’d fallen for her. Little good it did him.

  He hadn’t come to Mule Hollow to fall in love. This wasn’t the time in his life when he needed that—he didn’t feel worthy of the love of a good woman. He knew that Tacy was changing that.

  Something about the way she pushed and prodded him, teased and challenged him, made him know that he would never lose sight of the man he was meant to be. That didn’t alter the clear fact that he wasn’t the right man for Tacy.

  And that simply killed him.

  She was so upset with him that she’d put her walls back up. That was the difference in her behavior, and he knew it. He’d crossed the line into a realm of Tacy’s world that no other cowboy had been able to do. Jess had been right about that. But Brent didn’t know exactly how right the cowboy had been until now, until he was sent back to the position of every other cowboy in town.

  It was a cold place to be.

  She hadn’t pushed him to let her ride the unbroken colts over the last four days. Instead, she’d come, said little and ridden the two colts he’d given her permission to ride. She’d taken to riding them out back in the round pen behind the cabin. It was far away from him and encircled by mesquite trunks to lock out distractions for the horse. In this case, it was clearly Brent who was being locked out.

  When she went from barn to corral, she didn’t hang around or even try to sneak a peek at what he was doing with the paint or the ornery chestnut—who’d totally and completely rebelled against everything he’d done for them so far.

  He might have blamed some of his and Tacy’s troubles on the fact that he hadn’t gone to the churchwide Thanksgiving dinner. He hadn’t been feeling particularly thankful, so he’d worked. He knew it was tomorrow that Tacy really had a problem with—the fact that he wouldn’t spend Thanksgiving with his family. She would be even more furious if she knew that his mom had called again. He’d never felt so bad about saying no—because of Tacy’s pushing—but he’d stuck to his guns.

  Even when his mom told him that Tina had finally been given a clean bill of health by the doctors, he’d held firm…and all the while he’d had Tacy’s expression of disappointment in his thoughts.

&nb
sp; The chestnut suddenly jerked its head and swung its hips his way—as it kicked its back feet out, aiming for Brent.

  Brent sidestepped and barely missed the hit as he refocused on the wild-eyed horse. Plain and simple, this horse had a streak of meanness in it. Brent had gone on autopilot while his thoughts had been on Tacy, and that was not a smart move when working with a wild card like the chestnut. Breaking this piece of rank horseflesh the gentle way might not be doable. Angry at himself and the horse, he tied the chestnut to the corral.

  He needed to get his head on straight before continuing to work with this horse. If he didn’t, one of them was going to get hurt.

  Lugging her saddle, Tacy was leading the two colts back to the pen when she saw the chestnut try to kick Brent. Her heart stopped as only his quick sidestep saved him.

  His mind wasn’t on his work. Join the crowd.

  She eyed the chestnut. He’d tied it to the fence then stalked away out the side gate and disappeared into the barn.

  Tacy had done everything short of hanging a “Do Not Disturb” sign around her neck to avoid conversations with Brent. That hadn’t stopped her mind from churning with thoughts and questions about him. What was she going to do about him and her feelings?

  Nothing!

  As always, easier said than done. That just seemed to be the theme of her life.

  Feeling ornery herself, she continued to eye the chestnut as she opened the gate to the adjoining holding pen and let the black and roan loose. Brent hadn’t told her to work the chestnut, said it was still too ornery.

  Grabbing her saddle from where she’d dropped it on the ground as she’d let the colts go, she hiked it to her hip. Her adrenaline had begun strumming through her veins as she reached for the blanket and let herself in the gate. Quietly, she headed toward the chestnut.

  Today was the day she took back her future. If Brent thought this chestnut was ornery, he hadn’t seen nothin’ yet.

  Chapter Nineteen