His patience, as usual, paid off.
Midnight sniffed Ace’s hand, drew back and sniffed again.
It was a small but vital victory for Ace. When he reached out to stroke Midnight’s neck, the horse flinched. He didn’t bolt or rear, however, and after several more long moments, allowed Ace to run a hand along his neck and chest, his hide twitching.
Sadness squeezed Ace’s heart. Neglect had scarred this magnificent animal. He just didn’t understand some people, which would explain why, other than his family, he’d spent much of his thirty-four years a loner.
His attention wandered, as did his gaze. Flynn had evidently concluded one chance meeting with him was enough, for she was nowhere in sight. When Ace looked back around, Midnight had retreated to his corner and had resumed glaring at people. Ace in particular.
Rather than antagonize the horse unnecessarily, Ace conducted the remainder of his examination visually. Skittish personality and weight loss aside, the horse appeared in reasonably good health. Ace had no reason to doubt the copy of the medical report, which hung on the pen railing along with Midnight’s registration papers.
Ace turned, his movements calm and measured. He was taking a big risk presenting his back to Midnight. He’d once met an old cowboy with a sizable chunk missing from his shoulder after just this sort of move. But Ace had to know for certain if Midnight was wary and not mean.
He walked unscathed to the gate and sighed quietly. On the other side, he paused to look at Midnight.
The horse bobbed his head.
Yeah, I agree. Ace grinned to himself, feeling as if he, too, had passed a test. You’re coming home to Thunder Ranch with me.
His mother wasn’t standing where he’d left her. Ace spotted her several feet away, conversing with his uncle Joshua and cousin Duke who’d accompanied Ace and his mother to the sale.
He’d barely started toward them when Flynn unexpectedly crossed his path. A jolt of alarm brought him to a halt.
“Hi,” he muttered, trying to move. The soft ground pulled at him, sucking his boots down into the muck. He was trapped.
Served him right.
She stared at him in silence, tendrils of corn-silk-yellow hair peeking out from under her cowboy hat.
Memories surfaced. Ace had sifted his hands through that hair, watched, mesmerized, as the soft strands coiled around his fingers like spun gold.
Then, not two hours later, he’d abruptly left her bedside, hurting her with his transparent excuses.
No longer calm and collected, she stared at him with the same pained expression she’d worn that morning.
“Flynn, I’m sorry,” he offered lamely.
“For what exactly?” She crossed her arms in front of her and glared at him through slitted blue eyes. “Slinking out of my room before my father discovered you spent the night, or acting like it never happened?”
* * *
FLYNN THOUGHT SHE’D READIED herself for their inevitable confrontation. All the phrases she’d used to bolster her defenses during the drive to the auction suddenly abandoned her, and she was once again an emotional weakling.
What had possessed her to sleep with him?
Easy. Ace had been her first love—unfortunately, a very one-sided first love. She’d invited him home, hoping to ignite that elusive spark with him at long last.
And she did.
For several hours his passion had burned brightly. Beautifully. Flynn had never been loved so intensely, so thoroughly. She’d told herself he must have genuine feelings for her, even if he didn’t acknowledge them.
Reality, unfortunately, had returned when the sun crested the horizon, its soft rays breaching the blinds of Flynn’s bedroom and vanquishing the cozy cocoon of night. Ace couldn’t get dressed fast enough or leave in a bigger hurry. He’d had horses to check at home. A morning surgery scheduled. Then there was the meeting at the bank.
Legitimate excuses, but why hadn’t he been able to look her in the face when he gave them? Or do more than kiss her forehead before escaping through the back door, sock-footed and boots in hand?
Because he hadn’t wanted to stay with her or make a commitment.
Flynn had heard it all before. From her ex-husband and now Ace. The two men were peas in a pod. Both married to their jobs, both using their jobs as an excuse not to spend time with her.
Damn her foolish heart for always picking the wrong kind of man.
She should walk away from Ace, leave him the way he’d left her.
Instead, she stayed, his expression rooting her in place. If she wasn’t still angry at him, she might have been swayed by the regret brimming in his incredibly dark brown eyes.
“Can we talk?” he asked. “I’d like to explain.”
“This I have to hear.”
“Not now, not here.” He glanced over his shoulder at the people milling nearby. “Later. Somewhere less crowded.”
That was exactly what had gotten her into bed with him, his suggestion they leave the Number 1 Diner and go somewhere more private to continue their conversation.
Flynn rediscovered the confidence she’d lost upon first spotting Ace. “No, I don’t think so.”
“You have every right to be angry with me,” he began slowly.
She cut him off. “Do you not own a calendar? You’ve had better than three weeks to explain. I’m either working at the emergency clinic or helping Dad with the horses. Finding me isn’t a problem. Heck, I live next door to you.”
“I’m a jerk.”
His admission didn’t soften her resolve. He’d wounded her when he hurried off that morning. Hurt her worse when he didn’t call or come see her.
And she’d have walked barefoot across broken glass before calling him. Been there, done that—back when they’d dated briefly in college.
“Aidan!” his mother hollered. “We’re heading over to inspect the mares and geldings.” She waved and smiled at Flynn. “Don’t be a stranger. Come to lunch the next time Dinah’s over.”
Flynn waved in return. “Thanks.” Her father and Ace’s father might not have liked each other, but Sarah Hart had always treated Flynn like a second daughter.
And Ace had treated her like another little sister.
A four-year age difference hadn’t helped. Not until she was in community college and he in vet school did he finally notice her as someone other than his sister Dinah’s school chum.
They’d been careful in those days, keeping their relationship a secret in order to avoid their respective fathers’ wrath. It was anyone’s guess where things might have led if John Hart hadn’t died and Ace’s world hadn’t crumbled.
“I need to go,” he said.
“No one’s stopping you.”
It would be easier to hate him if he didn’t appear contrite and miserable.
She’d seen him steady a full-grown steer as it collapsed to the ground. Cushion the animal with his body in order to spare it injury.
How could a man so big and strong and capable be completely inept when it came to understanding women? No wonder he was still a bachelor.
Who was she to talk? She had one failed marriage behind her. A marriage that was, in all probability, a rebound from Ace.
“Flynn…” He reached for her.
“Forget it.” She started toward the horse pens where her father waited, then hesitated. Squaring her shoulders, she turned and faced Ace. “You made a big mistake three weeks ago. You walked out on the best thing to happen to you in a long time.”
She expected him to blush and falter and possibly be at a loss for words. That happened to him on occasion.
Today, he surprised her.
He met her stare head-on and said without missing a beat, “You’re right.”
Then why? her mind cri
ed out.
When he said nothing else, she left, sniffing in an attempt to hold back her tears. She’d given him an opening, a chance to say he wanted to see her again, and he’d refused it.
When would she learn?
She’d come home to Roundup following her divorce, in large part because of Ace and the possibility that they could pick up where they’d left off.
Except they hadn’t—a one-night stand years later didn’t count—and, after today, it didn’t appear as though they ever would.
Chapter Two
“Last up, folks, is the horse you’ve all been waiting for, The Midnight Express.” Loud speakers mounted from poles on either side of the ring gave the auctioneer’s voice a tinny and abrasive quality. “This here stud’s lineage goes all the way back to the great hall-of-fame bucking horse Five Minutes to Midnight. He’s won Bucking Horse of the Year twice, competed at the National Finals Rodeo a total of five times and has sired over sixty offspring, seven of which are actively competing on the rodeo circuit and doing well for their owners.”
Flynn sat with her father in the aluminum bleachers, listening to the auctioneer recite Midnight’s selling points. The horse himself, however, had yet to make an appearance in the ring.
She fingered the flyer in her hand as they waited. Murmurings as to the reason for the holdup traveled through the crowd like a signal zipping along a cable. Her father’s boot beat an agitated tattoo on the bleacher floor. He’d shown some interest in a few of the other bucking horses up for sale but let them all go to other bidders.
Ace was the new owner of ten, mostly mares. He and his family sat not far from Flynn, down a couple of rows and one section over. She’d noticed him glancing in her direction now and again, had noticed because her glance was constantly straying to him.
Enough already, she chided herself. He’s not worth it.
And yet, her insides insisted on fluttering.
“What’s taking so dang long?” her father complained to no one in particular.
“Are you going to bid on him?”
“Yep.”
“A stud horse, Dad? What happened to retiring?”
“I wouldn’t retire if I owned that horse.”
He’d been going back and forth for months now. Flynn had, too.
If her father got out of the business and moved to Billings to be near her sister, what would she do?
She regularly helped with his bulls and string of bucking stock and had since she was a young girl. After earning her associate’s degree in business administration, she also assisted him with the office work during evenings and weekends. Monday through Friday, she worked as an administrator at the Roundup Emergency Care Clinic. Pushing papers was her forte, if not her passion.
Once, she’d aspired to work in management for a large corporation. Except she hadn’t been able to get her foot in the door. Not like her ex-husband, whose career had soared while hers stagnated.
They’d originally planned to wait a few years before starting a family. With her career stuck in neutral, Flynn saw no reason to postpone having the children she’d always wanted. Her ex-husband adamantly refused, and Flynn was forced to let another dream go unfulfilled.
Her discontent increased when her older sister, Nora, a pharmacist, married a great guy and promptly bore the first of Flynn’s two nephews. How was it her sister seemed to effortlessly attain everything Flynn wanted?
If her father retired, there’d be opportunities. She’d been considering them for weeks with great deliberation. More since she lost her head and slept with Ace.
His abrupt departure had hurt, but it also drove home the point that the time had come and gone for her to let the past go and move forward.
The idea of returning to school appealed to her the most, but it would be next to impossible without moving from Roundup.
A rumbling from the crowd caused Flynn’s head to snap up. Midnight was being led into the ring. No, dragged into the ring, by two wranglers. With all four hooves digging into the muddy dirt, the horse lowered his hindquarters almost to the ground and resisted the tug from the two lead ropes connected to his halter. A third man, the livestock foreman hired by Wally Dunlap’s heirs, followed behind. He held a buggy whip and flicked it in the air behind Midnight, the snapping sound intended to encourage the horse.
It didn’t. Midnight bore down harder.
Flynn wanted to shout a protest. She wasn’t alone. Ace sprang to his feet, an angry scowl on his face, his flyer crushed between his fingers.
Just when she thought he might leap across six bleacher rows and over the ring fence, the horse went suddenly still and straightened. The wranglers must have decided to quit while they were ahead because they abandoned their efforts and stood, the lead ropes stretched taut.
Midnight ignored them. Raising his head, he stared proudly and defiantly at the audience. His mane and forelock fluttered in the same chilly breeze that snuck up the back of Flynn’s neck and caused her to shiver.
Or was the horse himself responsible for her reaction?
Up until this moment, she hadn’t understood the fuss. Sure, Midnight was good-looking, with quality bloodlines and a proven history as a champion bucking horse and sire. But there were lots of stallions like him for sale these days.
Seeing Midnight in the ring, however, she glimpsed the greatness in him that had excited her father and Ace and everyone else at the auction.
“Isn’t he something?”
“Are you sure about this, Dad?”
“I don’t want Ace and Sarah to have him.”
“Please don’t turn this into a competition with them.”
Her words fell on deaf ears. The auctioneer’s singsong litany had started.
“What do you say? Let’s start the bidding at twenty thousand dollars. Do I have twenty thousand?”
As if on cue, people inched forward in their seats, Flynn and her father included.
“Fifteen, do I hear fifteen?”
When the auctioneer dropped to five thousand dollars, the bidding took off. Her father didn’t join in until the going price reached ten thousand dollars. Ace refrained, Flynn noticed, his attention riveted on the horse.
Her father’s hand continually went up as he outbid everyone. When the price reached twenty-seven thousand dollars, only her father and one other man remained.
Flynn began to worry in earnest. Did her father have that kind of money?
“Twenty-seven, twenty-seven, someone give me twenty-eight thousand?” the auctioneer intoned.
“Twenty-seven, five.”
Every head in the stands turned toward the sound of a new voice. It belonged to Ace.
“Dammit,” Flynn’s father groused beneath his breath and raised his hand again. “Twenty-eight.”
“Twenty-nine.” This from the other man.
With Ace’s participation, the price was quickly driven up to thirty-five thousand dollars, her father making the last bid.
Flynn went from worrying to panicking. Surely he couldn’t raise that much money. He was letting the excitement of the bidding cloud his judgment.
“Dad, don’t be foolish.”
“I want that horse.”
“We’ll buy another horse.” A less expensive one.
“None of them are like Midnight.”
Evidently Ace felt the same, for he shouted, “Thirty-six thousand dollars.”
The other man promptly resigned with a discouraged head shake. “Too rich for my blood.”
That left Ace and Flynn’s father.
How was this possible? The two men she cared most for in the whole world were fighting over a stupid horse.
Wait a minute, she didn’t care about Ace.
Right.
If someone ever i
nvented a cure for unrequited love, she’d be the first in line to try it.
“Thirty-seven thousand,” her father shouted.
The crowd clapped and cheered. Easy for them, Flynn thought, it wasn’t their life’s savings on the line.
“This is insane,” she hissed. “You don’t have thirty-seven thousand dollars.”
“There’s my line of credit with the bank.”
“That’s for running the business!”
“Buying a bucking horse is business.”
“No, this is an absurd rivalry and refusing to let the Harts get one up on you. What’s the matter with you? You don’t act like this.”
For a moment, time froze. Then his face fell, and he groaned miserably. “Oh, God. What’s wrong with me?”
She reached for his hand and squeezed it between hers, relief leaving her weak.
“I don’t know what came over me. It’s just…” He groaned again.
“I have thirty-seven thousand dollars,” the auctioneer boomed. “Do I have thirty-eight?”
Ace and his mother bent their heads together and conferred behind the shield of their hands.
“Going once.”
Flynn went rigid. Why wasn’t Ace bidding?
“Going twice.”
Oh, no! What if the Harts dropped out?
Easy. Her father would have purchased a horse he really didn’t need for a sum of money he couldn’t possibly afford.
This couldn’t be happening!
“Thirty-eight thousand,” Ace shouted.
Flynn’s heart started beating again.
When the auctioneer finally called, “Sold to number fifty-seven,” a minute later, she let herself breathe.
The auction was over, and her father had spent no more than the price of gas for a round-trip.
Why, then, did he appear glum?
“Dad, you okay?” All around them the bleachers had started to empty, yet her father didn’t rise.
“Yeah, sure.”
“Is your indigestion bothering you again?”
“I’m fine.” He promptly pushed to his feet and extended a hand to her. “Come on. Let’s go home.”
Aidan: Loyal Cowboy: Aidan: Loyal CowboyThe Family Plan Page 2