You would think I’d given her diamonds instead of work gloves, she looked so grateful. Surprise shone in her eyes, too, like she couldn’t believe I’d been thatdecent. Just what kind of man had I led her to believe I was? And was breaking that image really the best idea?
“You ready?” I finally said before the moment could drag out any longer.
“I’m ready.”
I nodded and sat down so I could have a clear view of her as she tackled the chore. Toting a five-gallon bucket filled with water wasn’t nothing, and doing it thirteen times would be a harder task than she seemed to think. Her arms strained as she sloshed the half-empty bucket from the stallion’s stall, and she smiled to herself as she scrubbed it out, taking way too long to inspect the quality of her work.
After emptying, cleaning, and replacing three more buckets, I could see her enthusiasm fading. No, it wasn’t rocket science, but that didn’t make it easy work.
Watching her lug the buckets back and forth, thoughts of Delia flitted through my mind. I wasn’t sure why, since they were nothing alike. I couldn’t have picked out two more different women if I’d tried.
Delia. Now there had been a woman with mistake written all over her—I’d just been too blind to see it. A few years back, I’d been at the Mother Lode, and Delia had slunk up out of nowhere to challenge me to a game of pool. Her job managing Texas’s second-biggest wine broker had sent her to a nearby winery for the summer to gain some first-hand experience in the wine-making process. She’d been in a mood for a few other first-hand experiences, too. Delia had enjoyed riding my horses in the afternoons and sharing my bed at night, but it had all been just playing at being a cowgirl, I saw that now.
I’d been foolish to think Delia and I could have been more than a momentary fling. What business did a two-bit horse trainer have with an executive in heels? Humiliation still burned through me when I thought about how far gone I’d been. I wouldn’t have called it love, but I’d thought it was on the way to something real. That I’d been so overthrown by someone who hadn’t felt a thing for me still galled me.
As much as she’d cooed over the horses, she had never so much as glanced sideways at a pitchfork in the months we’d spent together. I never would have asked for her help around the ranch, but watching June scrub every last inch of the water buckets, indignation crawled around in my stomach that Delia had never had enough interest to offer.
After she left, I’d been determined not to make the same mistake twice. Career women and ranchers didn’t mix. But then, I’d met my brother’s girlfriend, and I’d started thinking about making all new mistakes. Terrible, awful, tempting mistakes.
Caring for a woman who was already taken had been bad enough, but caring for mybrother’sgirlfriend? Guilt ate me up six ways to Sunday. Oh, I’d tried to fight it—first my feelings for June, and then when that didn’t work, the guilt—but I’d thrown myself on my sword in every battle. I’d wanted her, and I’d hated myself for it. So finally, I left her be, hoping more than believing Bret would straighten up and treat her right.
Would have been smarter to bet on a dead horse.
“Okay, what am I doing wrong?”
June’s voice pulled me out of my sad-sack thoughts.
“What?” I snapped. She knelt in front of the hose bib, paused mid-scrub, with a bucket in one hand and the brush in the other.
“You’re staring at me and you don’t look happy about it. Am I not getting the buckets clean enough?”
“Buckets are fine.”
She pointed the scrub brush at me. “Then why do you look like you’re thinking about murder?”
Maybe because I was thinking about how my brother cheated on you like a damn fool?
“This is just how my face looks, June. You’re doing great.”
Her eyes lit up. “Really?”
“Yes, really.”
She smiled her delight, and that tenderness curled through me again.
I shoved those feelings away before they could dig in and take hold. I’d been down that road before and knew what waited for me at the end of it. I wasn’t about to let myself feel something more for June, only to watch her drive away when her visit to Magnolia Ridge came to an end, carting my heart off with her.
NINE
june
I almost likedTy better the day before when he’d micromanaged my work in the barn. This afternoon, he watched my progress with shuttered eyes, making little conversation as I moved between the stalls. His stormy mood reminded me of those last visits I’d spent at the Hardy house last year, before he stopped joining in altogether.
When we first met, we’d been friendly, companionable. Comfortable. For a while, I’d been totally at ease with Ty. Something about that ease, though, had left me with a shade of guilt, considering I’d been his brother’s girlfriend at the time. Soon, that guilt had been swallowed up by confusion as Ty grew more distant, until finally, he didn’t come around anymore at all.
Maybe he’d started dating that woman Pop had mentioned. I wondered what type of woman Ty was attracted to—in the nine months I’d dated Bret, he had never brought a date of his own to the Hardy family dinners, or any of the myriad barbecues his parents held. He liked blondes, apparently. Probably ones savvy on a horse, and with sense enough not to wear flip-flops to a ranch.
“Looks like you’re ready for the hay,” he said after I’d filled the last water bucket on its hook. “Grab that black feed cart at the end of the barn aisle and follow me.”
