Undeniably Yours

by Becky Wade

“You’re not giving me false hopes. All you’ve agreed to is a tour.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So right now, I’m just glad for the chance to give you a tour.”

  For a long moment, she considered him, trying hard to discern his motives.

  Bo looked back at her squarely, kindly. His lips curved up a little on one side.

  Was he manipulating her? Meg couldn’t tell. Her intuition read honesty and genuine goodness in him. But she’d been wrong about people in the past, and it would be naïve of her to think Bo had anything but his own self-interests at heart.

  “Ready to see some horses?”

  After a brief hesitation, she nodded.

  Just as he’d done with his staff, Bo introduced her to the horses, sharing information and a story about each one. Even Meg could recognize how exquisite they were. Finely boned, shining clean, muscled, and well proportioned.

  When they came to the far end of the building, Bo grabbed a straw Stetson off a peg, then ushered her through the door. Outside, several white-painted fences surrounded grass fields. “How large are these?” Meg asked.

  “These paddocks are about two and a half acres each.”

  “And beyond them?” She gestured to another fenced area that followed the contours of the land into the distance.

  “That’s a thirty-acre pasture.” He donned his hat one-handed, settling it easily into place.

  She followed him to a section of fence. They stood next to each other, separated by a respectful amount of space.

  Inside the paddock, two mother horses grazed, their babies moving closely alongside. “Oh,” Meg whispered. The babies were so small and sweet, with their overlong legs, dainty little faces, and manes and tails made up of more fluff than substance. Just looking at them caused tears to lodge in her throat. She’d always been sentimental, even at the best of times.

  “You okay?” Bo asked.

  “Thank you, yes. They’re adorable. That’s all.” She sniffed and ran her fingers under her eyes. “How old are they?”

  “About two months.”

  She could feel his gaze. She glanced at him and found him watching her with concern from beneath the brim of his hat.

  “I’m all right,” she assured him. One more sniff and she had herself back in order. “I do this a lot. Really, nothing to worry about.”

  “Maybe I ought to start carrying tissues.”

  “That’d be convenient.” She smiled at him, and he smiled back, looking as if he belonged in these surroundings every bit as much as the hills and the wildflowers. “If I had to guess, I’d say you’re from around here.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  She looked at him dubiously. Every inch of him, from the style of his Stetson to his roper boots, read “Texas Cowboy” to her. “I can just tell.”

  He glanced down at himself, then back at her.

  “Am I right?” she asked. “Were you raised in Holley?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you lived here your whole life?”

  “Before coming to Whispering Creek I worked at a horse farm in Kentucky for four years.”

  “My father stole you from the competition?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Sounds like him.” One of the baby horses executed a frolicking jump. “And before Kentucky?”

  “I was in the Marines.”

  “Okay, sure.” Meg tried to look natural, as if she knew lots of people in the military, when in fact she knew zero. “Where were you stationed?”

  “In California when I was in the States.”

  “And overseas?”

  “I did tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

  She could easily believe it. Bo emanated confidence and capability. It didn’t stretch her imagination at all to envision him as a soldier dressed in camouflage, serving the United States in far away and dangerous places. “How long did you serve?”

  “Six years.”

  “And before that?”

  “I was in high school.”

  “Did you go to Plano East?”

  He nodded. “What about you?”

  “I went to Hockaday in Dallas. Have you ever heard of it?”

  “No.”

  “It’s a private girls’ school.” Which, no doubt, would strike him as snobby.

  “You commuted there and back every day?”

  “I did.” Her father’s driver had ferried her to Hockaday every morning, kindergarten through twelfth grade, crossing over the invisible boundary line between horse country and city suburbs. Sadie Jo had picked her up every afternoon. Meg could still remember how Sadie Jo’s car had smelled—like Wrigley’s gum.

  “I don’t recall ever seeing you around Holley,” he said, “when you were younger. Did you spend much time in town?”

  “Not much. Sadie Jo, my nanny when I was a child”—something else for him to find snobby— “has a little Victorian house near the square. I spent some time there growing up. And to this day she and I like to eat at that antique store that serves lunch. What’s it called?”

  If he was put off by her expensive childhood, he didn’t show it. “Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle’s?”

  “Yes. And I go to the barbecue place now and then.”

  “Taste of Texas?”

  “Right.”

  One of the horses neared, and Bo reached out and rested his hand on the horse’s nose. He absently rubbed his palm up and down, then fiddled with a strand of mane.

  “Oh,” Meg remembered. “And my dad liked that diner near the edge of town.”

  “Wayne’s.”

  “He had breakfast there a lot.”

  Bo waited for a few beats. “Is that it?” He gave her a lazy smile, with just a hint of good-natured challenge in it. “Is that all the experience you’ve got with Holley?”

  “That’s about it.”

  “What about Sonic, Catfish King, Deep in the Heart?”

  “No.”

  “Sally’s Snowcones?”

  “No.”

  “DQ?” he asked hopefully. “Tell me you’ve been there.”

  “I’ve never been to the one in Holley. I’ve stopped at other Dairy Queens, though and, no offense, but I don’t think I’m missing much.”

  “C’mon,” he chided. “Their chocolate milk shake?”

  “I’m not a big ice cream fan.”

  “That’s sorry.”

  She laughed.

  Smile lines crinkled around his eyes, making his handsome face even more handsome.

  He was surprisingly easy to talk to, this man she’d tried and failed to fire. “It’s strange to think that we grew up in the same town but that our experiences were so different, isn’t it?”

  “It is.” Bo gave the horse a pat on the side of its neck, and it ambled off.

  Of course, hardly anyone had grown up like she had. Still, it surprised Meg that she could have been raised in this county and have had so little interaction with men like Bo. She was much more familiar with your average wealthy, private-school-educated Dallas man. That breed wore expensive designer clothes, drove Porsches, and could carry their end of a long conversation about wine.

  Bo’s breed? Unapologetically masculine. Too practical for designer clothes. Drove American-made trucks. Drank beer.

  A breeze combed through the trees, lifting Meg’s hair. As she glanced up to watch the clouds creep across the dusky blue sky, a faint sense that she’d misplaced something needled the back of her mind.

  She’d stashed her glasses in one of her sweater’s deep pockets. That must be it. When she fished them out and put them on, her view of the horizon turned from slightly fuzzy to clear.

  Yet . . . no. That wasn’t it. Something definitely was missing, though. What? She could feel her car keys still in her pocket. She’d left her purse at the big house.

  And then it hit her. The thing that had disappeared?

  Her anxiety.

  Gone, like a wisp of smoke that had vanished into the air. />
  Her stomach? Easy. Nerves? Steady. Heartbeat, respiration, blood pressure? Normal. It had been months since her body or mind had experienced this peaceful, untangled, lightweight state.

  Astonished, she moved her gaze to Bo. He’d stretched his arm over the fence, his fingers extended toward one of the baby horses. He spoke quietly to the young animal, encouraging it to come closer for a visit.

  He’d done this, she realized. Bo Porter had stilled the roiling inside of her. Or maybe some mysterious combination of the outdoors, the horses, and his nearness had done it.

  She couldn’t believe it! What therapy, antacids, breathing techniques, sudoku, and hours of self-talk had not been able to do for her, he’d done. This person she scarcely knew.

  It mystified rationality, and yet she didn’t want to overanalyze it. She only wanted to stand next to him and gratefully drink in the calm.

  They chatted while the shadows lengthened and the sky turned bronze. When Meg heard the sound of a car starting, she turned to see it drive away and realized that hardly any cars remained. Almost everyone had gone home for the day.

  “Well.” Reluctantly, she pushed away from the fence. “I’m sorry to have kept you so late. I’m sure you’re eager to head home.”

  “Not at all. We can stay as long as you’d like.”

  Tempting. “I’d best be going. Thank you for giving me the tour and for talking with me.”

  “You’re welcome.” He escorted her around the side of the barn toward her car. “Would you like to come out to ride sometime?”

  “Me?” Meg gave a soft laugh. “No, I don’t ride.”

  “I’d be happy to teach you.”

  “My father tried to teach me when I was a kid. I was terrified and ended up falling off. Predictable story.” She shook her head, self-deprecating. “I haven’t ridden since. I’d rather, I don’t know, go to the dentist for a root canal.”

  “In that case, you’re welcome to visit the foals anytime you’d like.”

  “That, I’d enjoy.” He had no idea how much. It couldn’t hurt to return here from time to time, to chat with Bo and admire his horses . . . could it? Not if it had the same relaxing effect on her the next time as it had today.

  Who’d have guessed it? She still couldn’t get over it. The company of this even-tempered cowboy had the power to quiet the tumult of her spirit.

  Once Meg had gone, Bo shut himself inside the barn’s warm room. Instead of getting started on the work that waited for him, he simply sat, his attention passing over the double sink, the shelves, the small fridge they used for employee lunches and horse medicines. Wooden table and wooden chairs. How could he be sitting here in such a normal way in this normal place? He looked down at himself, his chest, hands, legs. How could he appear the same when everything inside of him suddenly felt completely different?

  He’d stood next to Meg at the paddock fence just now and shared a conversation with her. One conversation. They’d been together an hour and a half at most.

  But it had been long enough. Long enough to shift everything within him, like a clock that had always run on one time zone and had just been reset to another.

  The hold she had on him had grown in strength with every minute that he’d spent looking at her, hearing her voice, taking in her nearness. She was impossibly fine, like something that belonged behind ropes and glass at a museum. Fair and gentle. Refined, smart, and yet somehow desperately in need of an ally.

  She drew at him so much that his attraction toward her felt like a physical pull. He’d been flooded with protectiveness, tenderness, desire. So much so that in her presence, he’d lost his grip on his goals for the farm. Which stunned and shamed him. The people who worked here were depending on him to do his best to keep the place running. He’d spent a lifetime working toward building a farm like this . . . it had been his everything.

  Had been.

  Because, Lord help him, he was afraid he’d just come face to face with the one thing—one person—on earth he believed he could care about more.

  He set his elbows on the table and dropped his head into his hands. Why her? Megan Cole? Of all the women on earth, why had he reacted to Megan Cole this way? He could drive to Holley right now and point to any unmarried woman walking down the street or shopping for groceries or pumping gas—any woman at all. And no matter whom he pointed to, that stranger would make a more logical choice for him than Meg Cole.

  She was the one shutting down his farm, for pete’s sake. And she was his employer, which meant that no matter how he felt about her, the requirement of a respectful professional relationship between them would prevent him from ever asking her out, from touching so much as the back of her hand, from giving his emotions voice.

  As if that weren’t enough, he and Meg lived in two different worlds that didn’t overlap at all. No matter what he did, he could never be good enough for her. Her family would be furious if they even suspected the direction of his thoughts.

  His cell phone rang. He checked its screen. “Hey.”

  “So?” Jake asked. “I heard you stayed out there talking with her for a long time. What do you think? Any chance she’ll change her mind about closing the farm?”

  “I’m not sure. As of today she’s still planning to shut us down.”

  “I don’t think she’s as stubborn or as strong as her father. She seems like someone who might be . . . I don’t know . . . easier to sway if you give her enough incentive.”

  Bo set his jaw.

  “Well?” Jake asked.

  “I just don’t know.”

  “We’ve got to keep the farm open, Bo. She has to change her mind.” What Jake had been through had nearly destroyed him, and Bo knew that Jake’s job at Whispering Creek gave him the only sanity, security, and purpose he had left. His brother needed Whispering Creek Horses. It terrified Bo to think what would happen to Jake without it.

  “You’re not saying much,” Jake said.

  “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

  “We’ll talk later.”

  The brothers disconnected. Bo pushed to his feet, crossed his arms, and stared sightlessly at the floor. Even before meeting Meg for the first time, he’d thought up a hundred ways to convince her to keep the farm open if she decided to shut it down. Since their meeting, he’d thought up a hundred more.

  But it turned out that Meg was more than William Cole’s daughter. More than the person who held the power to decide whether Whispering Creek Horses lived or died. She was a person in her own right. A person who’d managed today to stop his heart dead in its tracks.

  Guilt twisted Bo’s insides, sickening him, because he’d do just about anything in the world for his brother and rest of his staff. But he already knew he wouldn’t manipulate Meg. Not for the horses, not for those who worked for him, not for his own dreams, not even for Jake.

  He still planned to work his hardest to earn back the money the farm owed. That, he could honorably allow himself. Maybe once Meg saw how profitable Whispering Creek Horses could be, she’d reconsider.

  Beyond that, his conscience had whittled down his goals until only one remained: He would step into the breach for Meg and become, until someone better qualified than him took his place, the ally she desperately needed.

  That night Meg enjoyed a restful dinner, a bubble bath, and a session with her Monet biography. Then she slipped into bed, flipped the covers over herself, and settled her head on her pillow.

  When she closed her eyes, her mind pulled out and lingered over a pleasant memory of how Bo Porter had looked in his Stetson. Strong and relaxed, his hand on his horse’s nose, his gray gaze reassuring.

  For the first time in weeks and weeks, she fell right to sleep and slept soundly all the way through until morning.

  Bo hardly slept at all.

  Chapter Four

  Money could buy lots of things. Based on the evidence in front of Meg—she and Lynn were standing side by side in the living room of Whispering Creek’s guesthous
e—money had just bought her a completely inconvenience-free move from Tulsa to Dallas. She hadn’t so much as lifted a finger to help with the transition, and yet it had been beautifully accomplished. “Wow, it’s perfect.”

  “I’m glad you like it.”

  It was just past sunset on Saturday evening, twenty-four hours after Meg’s therapeutic visit to the horse farm. As she’d gone about her day, her anxiety had come creeping back. Not as bad as it’d been before her time with Bo, but returning nonetheless and escalating every hour.

  Apparently, the cowboy wasn’t so much a one-time miracle cure as he was a medicine that needed to be taken in regular doses.

  “How ’bout I show you around?” Lynn asked.

  “Sounds good.” Carefully, Meg set down the animal carrier she’d brought with her and opened its little metal door. “We’re home.”

  Her cat, Cashew, didn’t look as if she had any intention of disembarking.

  “You want to come see the house with Lynn and me?”

  Cashew averted her gaze and stared disdainfully at the wall of the carrier.

  “Grumpy about all the change lately?” Meg tested an empathetic smile on the animal.

  Cashew continued to give her the feline version of “talk to the hand,” so Meg and Lynn set off sans cat, moving through the guesthouse slowly, surveying all the changes.

  Lynn had arranged for someone to remove the old furniture and someone else to paint. The color combo of warm ivory walls and bright white trim on the crown moldings and baseboards reminded Meg of a hot vanilla drink topped with whipped cream.

  The moving company had packed every item in Meg’s old condo, driven it to Holley, and unpacked it all. A Dallas interior designer had come earlier in the day. She’d positioned Meg’s furniture, hung all the artwork, and placed each book, pot of greenery, lamp, and candle. She’d even set out vases filled with fresh-cut flowers and draped Meg’s pink cashmere throw blanket over the edge of the sofa.

  Meg’s shabby chic furniture, all of it old and weathered, looked right at home in its new environment. Her fabrics—the pink floral on half the throw pillows, the green stripe on the other half, and the checked fabric on the armchair—soothed and charmed her the way that they always had. Her old-fashioned hooked rug with the pink peonies and pale green leaves warmed the floor.