Broken Lies

by Rachel Branton

  But she was not without a backup plan, because this would be good for the girls and also the Silver A in the long run if they were trained. She knew it. “It’s also good publicity,” she said. “It’ll create goodwill with the community.”

  He folded his arms. “Is that what you told Dervin at High Vista?”

  She didn’t respond but was sure her color had deepened. Mr. King had told her bluntly that he didn’t have time to babysit, that he had to focus on beating his competitors.

  “I’m not too sure the community would ever know about it,” Crew added. “Or even just the horse community, for that matter. Not that I’m looking for that kind of publicity, mind you. I’m just pointing out that it’s not really a plus.”

  “Well, it would be if you had a decent social media presence.”

  He blinked at her, as if she had begun speaking a foreign language he’d never heard before. “We have a Facebook page.”

  “That you haven’t posted on since mid-March—over three months ago,” she retorted. Now that she’d opened the door, she might as well plunge all the way in. “You need to be posting daily on Facebook. Twitter could be more than that. And you don’t even have Pinterest or Instagram. With all these animals here, you could do some amazing posts.”

  His smile widened. “What would we post? We put up the breeding and training fees, and how many boarding openings we have. The rest, including our beef prices, is on our website.”

  “Which admittedly is a decent website,” she said. Not nearly as flashy as High Vista’s, but user friendly. “If you took out a few ads and did more interesting posts, you’d have horse lovers all over the world following you. Then you’d be the most popular breeding and training facility in the entire state, and maybe half the US.”

  Unexpectedly, he threw back his head and laughed. “I don’t think social media has that kind of power. People know where we’re at and what we sell. Besides, like I told you before, my main interest is my cattle, and I have established customers who don’t shop on Facebook.”

  She pulled out the big guns. “High Vista Farm has forty thousand likes on their page. That’s forty thousand horse lovers who see their posts but never see yours. I work for a marketing firm, and building strong social media profiles is one of the first things we do. I know it works.”

  He closed the book of checks and slipped it back into the drawer. “And just when am I supposed to do these posts? I have two full-time jobs here as it is.”

  She wanted to suggest that he hire someone, but if the Silver A Ranch was hurting financially, getting him to believe the money would be worth it might be a bigger challenge than accepting the girls. “Even a little bit can increase the page reach dramatically. And maybe the girls can help with taking pictures or coming up with fun ideas. Posts don’t always have to be strictly horse related. High Vista posted a picture of a newborn giraffe last spring before the foaling started. They got thousands of shares.” Which meant even more people saw it. Did he even know how Facebook worked?

  His eyes roamed her face. He was more attractive this close—rugged, strong, determined. A man who might be real enough to stick around.

  Stop, she told herself. She wasn’t here for a romantic connection. If she wanted romance, she’d accept a date from one of the dozen guys she worked with. She only didn’t because she knew too well from observation that they’d lose interest and chase after some pencil in a skirt the minute they grew bored.

  Crew’s look intensified. Time stretched between them, seeming almost to stop. Tara wanted desperately to flee, but she stood her ground, meeting his gaze, lifting her chin slightly in challenge.

  “Okay,” he said slowly. “Pending approval of my stable manager, I’ll let the girls come, but they have to do at least ten hours a week on a regular schedule. Twenty would be better. Since it’s summer and all.”

  Relief flooded Tara. She couldn’t help the smile growing on her face. She’d succeeded!

  “But I do have one condition,” he added, his dark eyes glinting.

  Her hopes plummeted. “And that is?” She hoped he didn’t want her to accompany the girls because her marketing job already required fifty or sixty hours a week, and volunteering at Lily’s took up the rest of her days. Yet at the same time, having him ask for her company would be flattering and a little bit exciting.

  “For every week they’re here, you’ll spend two hours updating our social media pages.” A mocking grin filled his face, and she had the distinct feeling he was toying with her.

  Two hours? Well, it wasn’t as if she couldn’t carve out that much time. She’d have to cut back on helping out at Lily’s House, or her sleep, or maybe stand up to her boss about the unpaid overtime, but the exchange for the girls would be worth it.

  “Deal,” she said before he could change his mind. She proffered a hand to seal the agreement—didn’t cowboys always shake on things? He took her hand and the sensation she’d experienced earlier infused her once again.

  Totally my imagination, she thought. But he was watching her, his expression shuttered. For several heartbeats he didn’t let go of her hand, and she didn’t pull away. Finally, as if by mutual agreement, their hands dropped.

  I do not like cowboys, Tara reminded herself again. She’d say it a million times if she had to. The truth was, his being a cowboy didn’t make her leery, it was her reaction to him she distrusted. That was easily solved, though. She absolutely wouldn’t go out with him, even if he asked. Not that he would ask, but now she didn’t have to worry about it. She felt relief in making the decision.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  “Go?” The way he’d spoken didn’t sound like he meant for her to leave. Besides, they still had to discuss what time the girls would come.

  His left eyebrow angled up in that same incredibly attractive way she’d noted before. “I’m sure you’d like to learn what I plan to have the girls do. And if you’re going to be posting about my ranch, you need a tour to cover the basics.”

  Was he serious? She was wearing a suit, for crying out loud, one with a skirt. And her heels had already shown they were a problem. She looked at her feet, and lifted one heel. “Maybe I can come back with the girls.”

  “Not a problem. Wait right here.” Going around the other side of the desk, he disappeared through an inner door.

  She shook her head, unable to guess at his meaning. As she glanced around the room, wishing he’d been more clear, her gaze snagged on a painting of an older couple behind his desk. His parents maybe? Or grandparents? She stepped closer for further investigation. The man looked like an older version of Crew.

  “My grandparents,” Crew said, startling her.

  She turned around to see that he was carrying a pair of bright blue cowboy boots. “You gotta be kidding,” she said before she could stop herself. No way was she putting on those ridiculous things.

  He gave her a slow smile that made her heart do a little dance. “Why not? They match your suit. I brought socks too.”

  He held out both the boots and socks, a challenge in his eyes. But it was the amusement she also saw there that made her take them from his hands. She sat in one of the two chairs in front of the desk and traded her black heels for the boots. To her surprise, the leather, while not exactly soft, was pliable. They were only the slightest bit too large.

  She looked up to see him staring at her, an odd expression on his handsome face—lost, maybe. Definitely sad. Both of these emotions she understood too well. Who did these boots belong to that seeing her in them brought that look to his face?

  END OF SNEAK PEEK. If you would like to download a free copy of Cowboys Can’t Lie, please click here and sign up for Rachel’s newsletter. Or continue to the next page for a bonus sample of All That I Love, a book from Rachel Branton’s Finding Home series. Enjoy! To learn more about the author and her books, please continue to the About the Author section following the bonus preview.

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  CHAPTER<
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  1

  On the day Brandon Rhodes came back into her life, Mercedes Walker Johnson was shopping at Safeway, not expecting anything out of the ordinary and certainly not expecting to see a ghost from her past. She wandered to the aisle where the boxed cereal sat on the shelves, frowning at the contents. Her three boys loved the stuff, but she knew the cold flakes weren’t as healthy as her home-cooked cereal. Still, in the past year or so, she’d taken to letting them get their own breakfast on Sundays. Everyone needed a day off—or as much of a day off as any woman on a farm could take. Even Wayne stayed away from the fields on Sundays, though the cow still had to be milked and the animals fed.

  She plucked a few boxes off the shelf, the ones with the lowest sugar content. Whatever questionable nutritional value they contained would at least be boosted by whole, fresh milk from their cow.

  Starting down the aisle, she wondered how Wayne and twelve-year-old Darrel were coming along on the planting. The sugar beets, of course, were already in the ground and growing. Hopefully they would have the spring wheat planted within the next week or two, so they could get in some corn to supplement their cattle’s ration of hay from the alfalfa that was standing a foot tall in the fields. Wayne had been trying his hand at raising cattle these past few years because a crop of calves could be worth far more than sugar beets and wheat. The winter had been tough for the animals, though, and she and Wayne had spent many months worrying about how many they might lose to cold or disease, but spring had blessedly come on time, and most had survived well.

  A man stood at the checkout as she approached, waiting for a total from the cashier. For a moment, he was any man, someone she didn’t know, but then he tilted his head and chuckled at something the cashier said, and Mercedes’ breath rushed from her. Him! He’s here.

  But she couldn’t really believe that. No, it was only someone who looked like him. Such a recognition had happened before, and always she would stand there with elation and fear vying in her heart, until at last the man would turn and she would realize she was mistaken.

  It’s not him, she told herself. She pushed her cart behind a display of ketchup where she could observe him without being noticed.

  “This place has changed a lot since I was here,” the man said. He was handsome, she could see, with brown hair and a square jaw that bore a slight stubble. He wore dress pants and a button-down shirt, with the first button open. “Been nearly thirteen years.”

  Mercedes swallowed hard. Thirteen years. It could be a coincidence.

  “Well, the years tend to do that to a place.” The cashier was a plump Native American woman in her fifties, one Mercedes often saw here, though she didn’t know her by name. “Things change. So you’re a doctor, are you?”

  “How did you know?”

  She pointed without expression to the identification card clipped to his pocket. “Your tag. You come to work at Riverton Memorial?”

  “Actually, I’m here to teach the heart procedures I developed with some universities. We’re holding a seminar here.”

  “Well, uh, Dr. Rhodes, I hope you have a good time in Riverton. Maybe I’ll see you again. Thank you for shopping at Safeway.”

  Mercedes’ heart thundered in her chest. Dr. Rhodes. Dr. Brandon Rhodes. Once she’d hoped and prayed to see him again, thought she might die if she didn’t. But that was before she’d understood the truth and begun hoping and praying never to see him again. In the past few years, she’d almost managed never to think about him at all.

  A normal person would go to the counter and say hello. After all, they’d once been close. More than close. She still remembered the first day they’d met, how they’d shared lunch in the hospital cafeteria, the way the world had ceased all movement. The way her life had changed.

  Mercedes closed her eyes as the familiar wave of pain crashed through her chest and spilled through her limbs and out every pore of her body. He had no right to come back. Not now. Not after all this time.

  I hate you, she thought, but she knew it wasn’t that simple. The main reason, of course, that she couldn’t smile and greet him was Darrel. If it could be said she had a favorite child, Darrel would be it, though her other sons were as precious, and she worked hard to treat them the same. The fact remained that Darrel was different. He was a part of the old life, the life that yearned for more. She knew he wouldn’t belong on the farm much longer, but she wasn’t ready to give him up quite yet.

  You don’t deserve him, she said to the man’s retreating back.

  I won’t let you ruin his life . . . like you did mine.

  Of course, there was no indication that he was in Riverton for any reason other than the one he’d told the cashier. He might not know that she still lived an hour northeast of the city on what had once been her father’s farm. Maybe he thought she’d continued her studies to be a psychologist. If so, she could be working anywhere by now.

  The thoughts calmed her, and she was about to make her way to the counter when he stopped and turned back to the cashier. “Have you heard of a place called Walker Farm? Do you happen to know who owns it now?”

  “Sounds familiar, but there are a lot of farms around here.”

  “It’s about fifty miles or so out of town. Northeast.”

  “I don’t go out that way much. Sorry.”

  “What about a woman named Mercedes Walker? Do you know her?”

  The woman shook her head, lightly rustling the gray-streaked black hair that fell midway down her back. “We got ten thousand people living here, plus all those that come in from the other towns to shop. It ain’t thirteen years ago. We don’t know everybody like we did back then. Or practically.”

  He nodded. “Well, thanks. I figured it was a long shot.”

  “Maybe try the phone book.”

  “Good idea. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you. I’m here for a couple weeks.”

  Mercedes’ heart was pounding so loudly she almost couldn’t breathe. So much for hoping he wouldn’t pursue their connection. But why would he even try? Did he think she’d still be sitting here, waiting for him? And what right did he have to return after all this time, anyway? Thirteen years since he’d walked away.

  He’s just looking up an old friend, she told herself. Bitterness filled her mouth at the thought. Friends. She hadn’t even been worth a postcard or a letter. Maybe if he’d written, it would have been different for Darrel. But it was too late now. She loved her life, her boys, and Wayne. Nothing this stranger could do would change that.

  Unless he somehow knew about Darrel.

  Mercedes closed her eyes again, fear welling up in her chest. Dear God in heaven. Please help me.

  “Are you all right?”

  Mercedes opened her eyes to see the cashier standing in front of her. “Oh, thanks. I’m fine. I was just thinking.”

  “You sure? You’re white as a sheet.”

  “I’m all right. Really. I think I’m finished shopping. Could you ring me up?”

  “Sure. Come on over to the register.”

  When the groceries were tallied, Mercedes’ hand shook as she wrote out the check. The woman didn’t bother to ask for ID, obviously recognizing her from other trips into town, but her eyes caught on the name. “Walker Farm? Mercedes Johnson. Hey, there was a guy in here just now asking about you. Real handsome fellow. A doctor. Been in a couple times in the past few weeks. I think he’s probably still in the parking lot. You want me to catch him?”

  “That’s okay, I—”

  “No problem, really.” The cashier slammed the till shut and scooted toward the front of the store faster than her bulk should have allowed.

  “Please,” Mercedes called after her. “Don’t—” But the woman was already out the door.

  Brandon.

  Panic made Mercedes wonder if there was a back door. She imagined herself vaulting over a cart of vegetables as the store manager chased her down. But the panic subsided as quickly as it came, and anger took its place. He had no right to
come back into her life.

  The cashier reappeared—alone, and Mercedes felt an odd piercing disappointment that made no sense at all. “He’ll be right in,” the woman told Mercedes. “He’s putting his bags in his car.”

  “Thank you.” Mercedes made a private note never to shop this Safeway again. Yet why should she let a man she hadn’t seen for almost thirteen years chase her away? Another burst of anger gave her strength. Ignoring her cart, Mercedes hefted her plastic bags of groceries, two in each hand. They weighed nothing compared to what she had to lift at the farm.

  She strode out the door, heading purposefully toward her green truck. The battered Ford had seen better days, but it was like an old friend, dependable and familiar. With any luck, she’d get in and drive away before Brandon caught up with her. Setting down the bags, she opened her door, shoved the groceries inside, and climbed into the cab. Relief was already calming the furious pounding of her heart.

  “Mercedes?”

  Her hand froze on the open door. Part of her wanted to slam it and drive away, but the other part was curious about the man he’d become. She turned and met his eyes. For several seconds, she said nothing. She drank in the handsome face, brown hair, and green eyes. He looked the same, and yet he didn’t. There was maturity in the face and a confidence that had been lacking when she knew him before.

  For a moment she felt disoriented, as though the fabric of time was somehow adjusting itself. From somewhere came the blare of a car horn and a man’s distant shout. But the earth didn’t stand still. Brandon Rhodes was simply a person she had once known, and if she played this moment well, she would never have to see him again.

  “Excuse me?” she asked.

  “It is you! Mercedes, don’t you recognize me? It’s Brandon Rhodes.”

  “Brandon?” She scrunched her forehead. “Oh, Brandon! My goodness, it’s been so long.” She gave him a polite smile he couldn’t possibly know was fake. He didn’t know her at all— and apparently never had. The past was proof of that.