by Marin Thomas
Great. “Any word from Millie?”
“Nope.” Dave scuffed his boot against the ground.
“I’m sorry.” Mack sure as hell knew what Dave was feeling. They should change the name of the place to Heartbreak Ranch—anyone who stays here leaves with a broken heart.
“If Jake doesn’t show up before we do our first cattle drive, tell Porter he’s got the job, if he wants it.” Dave gestured to Mack. “Are you and the band playing this weekend?”
“No. The guys want to be with their families, so we’re cutting back on our performances.” And Mack needed to focus on making the cattle drive a successful part of the dude ranch experience. He didn’t have time to wallow in self-pity. Besides, it was Beth’s loss if she couldn’t see how perfect they were together.
Chapter Twelve
“Well, this is a surprise.” Beth’s mother opened the screen door and hugged her. “Why didn’t you call ahead and tell us you were coming for a visit?” She ushered Beth into the house.
“I was in the neighborhood and I didn’t want to leave California without seeing you.” It was time to break the news about her divorce and she hoped her mother felt well enough to hear it.
“Come into the kitchen. I’ll make lunch. Your father’s golfing, but he’ll be home soon.”
“How are you feeling?” Beth asked.
“Much better. I’ve got my energy back from all those nasty radiation treatments.” Her mother nodded to the pantry. “There’s a bottle of merlot on the shelf.” She opened the fridge and removed a plastic container. “I made chicken salad the other day.”
“I’m glad you’re feeling more like your old self now.” Beth poured two glasses of wine and drank from one. “This is excellent.”
Her mother raised an eyebrow. “The least you could do is sip and not guzzle.”
“It’s been a long...nine months, Mom.”
“Oh, dear. Hold your thoughts until lunch is ready, then I’m all ears.” When her mother delivered the sandwiches to the table, Beth had already finished a second serving of wine.
There was no way to ease into the subject, so she blurted, “Brad and I are officially divorced.”
Her mother choked on her wine.
“Sorry. I should have waited until you swallowed.” Beth patted her back. “I meant to tell you and Dad earlier but I didn’t want to add to your worries when you were in the middle of your treatments.”
“Honey, you should have told me anyway.”
“Brad caught me off guard and it’s taken a while to come to grips with everything.”
“I can’t say that I’m surprised.” Her mother offered a sympathetic smile.
“Really?”
“When we first met Brad, I didn’t have a good feeling about him. He was too cocky. Too self-centered, but your father warned me not share my impressions with you.”
“I know Dad was excited that I was marrying a sportscaster.” She recalled the evening they’d met her parents at a restaurant in San Diego and announced their engagement. Afterward, the dinner conversation had focused on sports until the check arrived, then Beth and her mother returned home, and her father and Brad had gone to a bar to talk more sports.
“Never mind your father. What happened?”
Beth didn’t care to go into detail about how she and Brad had steadily grown apart the past five years, so she settled on the facts. “He slept with my boss.”
Her mother winced.
“Brad met Sara at our company party.”
“How long were they carrying on before you found out?”
This part of the story made Beth look like an idiot. “Several months. Then Sara became pregnant and Brad asked me for a divorce.”
“I thought Brad didn’t want children.”
“He didn’t, until Sara got pregnant. Then he decided fatherhood was a great idea. Evidently, the station manager believed Brad’s ratings would go up if viewers perceived him as a family man.”
“What a schmuck.”
Beth appreciated her mother taking her side and squeezed her hand.
“You two could have adopted.”
Her eyes burned, and Beth cursed herself for being weak. She’d cried enough tears over her failed marriage. “I feel sorry for Sara. She’ll learn soon enough that the man she married is a self-centered, egotistical bastard.”
And Mack is none of those things. Even now, sitting in her mother’s kitchen after a stressful job interview and talking about her divorce, Mack was never far from her thoughts. If only the memory she carried in her heart wasn’t the one of him gaping at her in stunned silence when she’d told him he’d been nothing more to her than a good time.
“Have they married?”
Her mother’s voice interrupted Beth’s daydream. “What?”
“I asked if Brad married your boss.”
“Yes.”
“How have you been holding up at work?”
“I quit my job. That’s why I’m in California. I had an interview in San José yesterday.”
“I wish you would have told me sooner. You’re welcome to stay here with us as long as you need to.”
“I knew you’d want me to come home if I’d told you. I didn’t want to add more stress to your lives than you were already under.”
“Well, I’m feeling fine now, so why don’t you move in with us until you decide what to do?”
“I will if I need to, Mom.”
“What about your place in Yuma?”
“We sold the house.”
“Then where are you living?”
“Dad’s friend, Dave Paxton, is letting me stay at—”
“The Black Jack Mountain Dude Ranch? Good grief, there’s no need to stay at that desert hideaway.”
“I thought you liked the dude ranch. You and dad go there once a year.”
“Your father enjoys pretending he’s a cowboy every now and then. He rides the trails and I sit in the cabin and catch up on my reading.”
“I needed time alone to come to grips with the divorce and make plans for the future. The peace and quiet at the ranch has helped me.” Excluding falling in love with Mack.
“You’re a sensible girl. You’ll land on your feet and be stronger for having gone through this.”
Her mother wouldn’t consider her daughter sensible if she knew Beth had had a one-night stand with Mack—a two-night stand if she counted the stay in Prescott. “To tell you the truth, I’ve enjoyed a break from the finance world.” She squirmed under her mother’s stare. “What?”
“You met a cowboy, didn’t you?”
Drat. She hadn’t intended on mentioning Mack.
“Where’s your cowboy from?”
Mack wasn’t her cowboy, but since her mother refused to drop the subject, she might as well confess everything—except the parts where she slept with Mack. After droning on for ten minutes, she allowed her mother a chance to speak.
“I’m surprised that you fell for another man who craves the limelight.”
“I haven’t fallen for Mack, Mom. We’re just friends.”
“Mack? Is he the cowboy who works for Dave?”
Beth nodded. She should have expected that her parents would recognize his name if they’d vacationed at the ranch.
“What’s his last name? I don’t recall it.”
“His birth name is Merle Haggard Cash.”
Her mother’s mouth dropped open.
“He and his brothers were all named after country-and-western legends by their mother, who is now deceased.”
“Good grief. What are the names of Mack’s brothers?” Her mother held up a hand. “Wait. I don’t want to know.” She studied Beth. “Are you sure you’re friends with Mack, because the look in your eyes w
hen you mention him tells me that you have deeper feelings for him.”
“No matter how much I care for Mack, we can never be anything but friends.”
“Is it because he didn’t go to college?”
“How do you know that?” Beth asked.
“He works at a dude ranch and sings in a country-and-western band.”
“You’re stereotyping, Mom.”
Her mother rolled her eyes. “Why can’t you be more than friends with Mack?”
Beth rubbed her finger over the flower pattern on the lunch plate. “You know why.”
“I’ll say it again...adoption is an option.”
Adoption is an option. Adoption is an option. Beth hated her mother’s mantra.
“Mack comes from a big family. He has five brothers and a sister and four of them are married with children.”
“You’ve met his family?”
“We took care of his twin nephews when his sister-in-law went into labor.”
“How old are the boys?”
“Six.” Beth smiled. “One is shy and the other talks your ear off.”
“Sounds like you enjoyed being with them.”
“I did. But...”
“What, honey?”
“It reminded me all over again that I’ll never have children of my own.”
“I don’t like it when you talk this way. Having a baby doesn’t make you a mother. There are lots of women who have babies and give them away or abuse them.”
“I’ve heard all this before from you.” Beth shoved her chair back and took her plate to the sink. “I get that I can adopt. I get that thousands of children in this country are waiting to be part of a family.” She pressed a hand to her heart. “But it’s not the same as looking at the face of a child that’s part of you.”
“You’re right. Adopted children wouldn’t look like you, but that doesn’t mean they don’t become more like you under your care and guidance.”
“It doesn’t matter. I got the job I interviewed for in San José.”
Her mother offered Beth a reprieve and changed the subject. “Tell me about the job.”
“Cambridge Financial Investments. They have offices in New York and Chicago, as well as San José.” Beth poured herself a glass of water and returned to the table. “And there’s an opportunity to advance in the company.” An opportunity she hadn’t had at Biker and Donavan Investments.
“What’s the salary?”
“Twenty thousand more than what I was making in Yuma.”
“I’m sorry things didn’t work out with Brad but I’ll look forward to having you back in California.”
Beth summoned a smile. As much as she loved her parents, visiting them wouldn’t fill the void in her after she left Mack behind for good.
* * *
WEDNESDAY EVENING MACK’S boss called him and Hoss to his office for a meeting.
“There’s been a change of plans this weekend.” Dave’s voice sounded garbled in Mack’s ears, his thoughts focused solely on Beth, who’d returned to the ranch earlier in the day, supposedly to discuss Dave’s financial investments in exchange for him having allowed her to stay at the ranch free of charge. He wanted to know if she got the job in California, but he was still ticked off about the way things had ended between them that he’d resisted the urge to knock on her cabin door and ask.
“Mack, are you on board?” Dave asked.
“Sorry, what was that?”
“The Creighton party from Delaware rescheduled for next month so with the unexpected vacancy I decided to fulfill a promise I made to a friend.”
“What kind of promise?” Hoss asked.
“This Saturday we’re hosting a group of kids from the Yuma County Children’s Home.”
“We got a bunch of ruffians comin’ here?” Hoss asked.
“Greg Hansen is the supervisor of the home. He’s been bugging me to let him bring the kids to the ranch.”
“We can’t watch all them kids,” Hoss said.
“Since we’re shorthanded with Jake gone, Greg is bringing two volunteers with him to help supervise the group.”
“How many will there be?” Mack asked.
“I’m not sure. The kids are between the ages of six and fourteen.”
“Girls or boys?” Hoss asked.
“Both, I think. Greg didn’t offer a whole lot of information about them.” Dave crossed his arms behind his head and relaxed in his chair. “Aside from a trail ride in the afternoon before the chuck wagon cookout, any ideas what we can do to entertain these kids?”
“What about a mutton-bustin’ rodeo for the younger ones? I can contact P. T. Lewis.” The rodeo promoter would know where to find sheep for the event and safety equipment for the little ones.
“I like the idea of keeping the kids in one place,” Dave said. “Make it happen. We’ll have a mini rodeo before they return to Yuma. We can use it as leverage to make sure they obey the rules.” Dave’s expression sobered. “The safety of the kids is first and foremost. Is that understood?”
Mack and Hoss nodded.
“And it goes without saying—” Dave nodded to Hoss “—no chewing tobacco in front of them.”
Hoss grumbled beneath his breath but didn’t object.
“Any questions?” Dave grabbed his notepad. “Okay, let’s make sure everyone has fun.”
Hoss and Mack left the office—Hoss returning to the barn and Mack staying in the dining room to make a call to P. T. Lewis. The rodeo promoter didn’t answer, so he left a message, hoping P.T. would return his call ASAP. If the mutton-bustin’ competition fell through, they’d have to come up with a different activity, and kids could only play at roping a pretend steer for so long before they grew bored.
When Mack stepped outside the mess hall, he walked straight to Beth’s cabin. So much for being able to ignore her presence. He wouldn’t sleep a wink tonight until he found out what had happened with her interview. He knocked twice before she opened the door. Her hair was messy as if he’d woken her from a nap. She looked soft and cuddly, and he wanted to hold her and bury his face in her neck.
“I can’t talk right now,” she said.
The toe of his boot blocked her attempt to close the door in his face. “How did the job interview go?”
There was a moment’s hesitation then she motioned him inside. He remained by the door and she stood behind the chair, arms clasping her waist, looking like a waif. If she’d only used him for a rebound guy, why was she having trouble meeting his gaze? Seconds ticked by, then she spoke. “They offered me the job.”
A sharp pain jabbed him in the chest. “Did you accept it?”
“Yes.”
He searched for words to express how he felt, but his emotions were a mess and he couldn’t think of a damned thing to say. She must have sensed his struggle, because she carried the conversation.
“I stopped to visit my parents.” Her gaze flicked to his and in that split second he saw regret in her eyes. Why? Wasn’t she happy that she’d landed a new job? Or would she miss him when she left? A sliver of hope worked its way beneath his skin but he was hesitant to make too much of it.
“I hadn’t told them about my divorce.”
“How did they react?”
“My mother wasn’t surprised. My father took it hard. He liked the idea of having a daughter married to a sportscaster.”
Mack wondered what Beth’s father would say if his daughter married a cowboy musician. “I’m sure your parents want to see you happy.” He wanted Beth to be happy, but he wanted to be the man who made her happy. “I’ve thought long and hard about what you told me,” he said.
She focused on the floor.
Forget keeping his distance. He crossed the room and grasped her hands, gra
teful she didn’t pull away. “I think you lied to me, Beth Richards.”
She stiffened.
“I think I was more than a fling. You know why?”
“Please, Mack. I don’t want—”
He held her hand against his heart. “Because the night we made love in Prescott you looked into my eyes and said I made your dreams come true. Remember that?”
Her cheeks turned pink.
“I’m in love with you, Beth.” He’d said it first. Put his heart out there for her to stomp on if she chose to. He waited, hoping she’d be honest with him.
“You can’t love me,” she whispered.
“Give me one good reason why loving you is a bad thing? When I look at you, I see a million ways you make me happy.”
She caressed his cheek, the warmth of her touch zapping his heart. “I can’t make you happy in the long run.”
“You’re talking crazy. You already make me happy. And I know I can make you happy.” He kissed her temple then her cheek then her mouth. “You watched me sing when you rode the mechanical bull at the bar.” He nibbled the side of her neck. “Love, not lust, made your eyes so soft and dark that night.”
Tears shimmered on her lashes. “Don’t make this any harder than it already is.”
“There’s nothing difficult about confessing your love for me, Beth. But I can wait until you’re ready.”
“Stop.” She moved away from him and stood across the room. This wasn’t going to end the way she hoped, but she owed Mack the truth. “Yes, I love you.” More than I ever thought possible. The relief that shone in his eyes hurt more than if someone had punched her in the stomach.
“If you love me then you must be imagining a future with me.”
Don’t ask. “What kind of future do you see for us?”
He grinned. “You go first. I don’t want to scare you.”
She swallowed hard. “I don’t see the same future for us that you see, Mack.”
“What do you mean?”
She’d come to terms with never having children, had even taken a leap of faith by marrying Brad. But her sterility had come back to haunt her, destroying her marriage and sending her down this road of heartache with Mack. And for what? Neither of them came out the winner.