Trusting the Cowboy (14 page)

“He would have fallen and hurt himself,” Vic said. “He’s been doing so well with his rehab, I didn’t want to see him lose all his progress with one stupid mistake.”

“He was being careful,” Lauren said. “He’s a big boy.”

“But what if...” Vic shook his head as if he understood what he was doing.

“What if he fell? He would get hurt. But I don’t think he wanted to fall, so I doubt he would have taken any huge risk.” Lauren stopped herself, realizing she was lecturing him.

Vic seemed to consider her comment. “I think you’re right. I’m going to have to learn to leave things be with him.”

Lauren laid her hand on his arm and gave a gentle squeeze. “Remember, it’s not your fault, what happened to him. You don’t have to work overtime to make up for it.”

Vic gave her a grateful glance. “I suppose,” he said. He cupped her face in his hand and she thought he was about to give her a kiss when her cell phone rang.

She looked down at the screen and her smile faded away.

It was Amy.

“I better take this,” she said, holding up the phone.

She touched the screen, accepting the call as she walked away from Vic. But as she lifted the phone to her ear she heard nothing. She was too late.

A momentary reprieve
, she thought, noticing that a text message had come in while her phone was ringing.

It was from Alex Rossiter.

Events and decisions were crowding in on her. She needed to make choices soon.

But as she turned back to look at Vic, she knew she couldn’t put off her decisions any longer.

Chapter Twelve

“S
o, how was your date?” Jodie asked as Lauren dropped onto the deck chairs Jodie and Finn had found tucked away in one of the garages.

From her seat Lauren could look over the flower beds that now held splashes of red and purple, yellow and blue.

There were buds on the lilies, and though Nadine at the greenhouse had told her to cut them off, she had kept the flowers on. Next year they would bloom even more.

Next year.

I want to be here next year.

“You’ve got your thinking face on. Was the date that bad?” Jodie sat up, dropping her bare feet onto the wooden deck with a thump, her blue eyes wide. “Don’t tell me—”

“The date was fantastic, if you must know, and that’s all I’m going to tell you.” Lauren held up her hand to forestall any further questions from her sister.

“So, what’s making you look so serious?”

Lauren kicked her shoes off and tucked them under her, leaning back in the chair, her eyes sweeping over the yard. Beyond the barn she saw fields rising to hills rising to mountains, purple edged against a sky slowly turning pink as the sun set.

“It’s beautiful here, isn’t it?” she said.

“Yeah. It is.” Jodie inhaled a deep breath, then blew it out. “And you’re thinking of moving back to the city. Living the dream.”

“I don’t know if I’ve ever thought of it as the dream,” Lauren said. “I think owning my own business with Amy was a means to an end.”

“The end being independence.”

“Sounds kind of empty now, doesn’t it.”

“It is. Independence is overrated. You can’t tell me that you’d prefer to own your own business, live in an apartment downtown and head off to work in an office every day. Wearing high heels? Every day?”

Lauren chuckled at the disgust in her sister’s voice. “I can wear flats, too.”

“Is that what you want? Compared to this?” Jodie swept her hand out, encompassing the view.

Lauren shook her head. She didn’t.

“Then can’t you stay?”

“I want to,” she whispered, thinking of Vic and what they had shared. His love for his brother. His solidity. “But what would I do here? I wouldn’t have my own life.”

“I know that’s important to you.”

“You have your music, your composing. You have your own place and a future with Finn.”

“You could start an accounting business here.”

“Maybe. But I would have to start from scratch.”

“Would you want to do it? For Vic?”

“The idea of making that kind of sacrifice for another man scares me to death. I did it with Harvey, and while I know Vic is nothing like Harvey...”

She let the sentence drift off, knowing that Vic was ten times the man Harvey was.

“I know exactly how this works,” Jodie said, pulling her chair closer and taking Lauren’s hand in hers. “Finn made me nervous, too. But I learned to trust him. Vic is a good guy. I know you can trust him.”

Lauren nodded, her head doing battle with her heart.

“What’s going on behind that cool, calm facade of yours?” Jodie pressed.

“Obligations. Promises. And the fact that what Amy and I are planning gives me control over my life.”

“You know that none of us ever can control our lives,” Jodie said. “I had to learn that lesson long ago. So many things come along that can toss over that particular apple cart.”

Lauren heard the wisdom in her words.

“But here, in Saddlebank, you have a community you can be a part of. A church that’s dynamic and welcoming. You have me and you have a man who, I believe, truly cares about you.”

“Maybe,” was all she said.

“I’ve seen a real change in you since you’ve come back,” Jodie continued. “You seem more relaxed. Less uptight. You’ve lost that frown line between your eyebrows, and your mouth isn’t as pinched. I’ve seen you smile more the past few weeks than I’ve seen in a long time.”

“I am happier,” she admitted, giving her sister one of those smiles that did come easier than they had before.

“And you look happier now than you did with Harvey.” Jodie gave her a pensive look. “I sometimes wonder if you really loved him.”

“I’ve wondered the same thing.” She toyed with her sister’s engagement ring, turning it so it caught the sun, emitting sprinkles of light. She’d had a ring just like it. In her mind it represented success and security, but it had all been a lie. “I think Harvey became a habit after a while. It was easier to stay with him than to think about what my life would be like if I left him.”

“And Vic? How do you feel about him?”

Lauren’s heart turned over in her chest as thoughts of Vic overshadowed the vision of independence she’d carried with her since getting laid off.

“I care about him more than I want to think about,” she said. “He makes me feel like I want to be a better person.”

Her phone rang, and with a feeling of anticipation she reached for it. Vic had asked her to text him when she got home. Just to make sure she made it safely, he had said with a teasing grin.

But as she glanced at the screen, her heart dropped. It wasn’t Vic. It was Amy.

“I’ve got to take this,” she said as she got up. “I missed her last call. Please excuse me.” But as she walked into the house, she realized that at one time texts and calls from Amy about their plans had created a sense of excitement.

Now they created a sense of dread.

* * *

“Well, I guess that’s the last of it.” Vic leaned back in the office chair, tamping down his fear as they set the file containing Keith’s personal papers aside.

Though nothing had emerged from the last few times he was here, he’d felt an urgency to try one last time. The problem was now he wasn’t only looking to protect his interests in the ranch—he was hoping to give Lauren a reason to stay.

After their last date, he felt even more strongly than before that Lauren belonged here. He just wished he could convince her of that.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t find anything,” Lauren said, reaching over and turning the computer off.

“Me, too.” He glanced at his phone lying on the desk as the time registered. “And I gotta go. Dwayne is coming to pick up your dad’s truck.”

“It’s still at your ranch?”

“Yeah. Since your father’s accident.”

He pushed up from his chair, fighting to resign himself to that reality. He held his hand out to her to help her up and she took it. She stood in front of him now and lifted one hand, resting it on his shoulder.

He studied her features, wondering what she would say if he asked her to stay, knowing that if he did, he was heading down a one-way path himself.

Because asking her to stay meant sticking his neck out.

The last time he had done that, with Tiffany, the results had been disastrous.

That wasn’t your fault.

And yet, he felt as if his pushing Tiffany away had been the flashpoint that turned his and Dean’s lives around.

He didn’t want anything to happen with Lauren. He wanted her to decide for herself.

“You look like you’ve got heavy things on your mind,” she said as her phone buzzed yet again.

It had been ringing all morning, but she’d ignored it. He knew things were coming to a head.

“Are you going to get that?”

She shook her head.

He fought down a sudden beat of frustration. “I’m sure Alex doesn’t appreciate being strung along like this.”

She gave a noncommittal nod.

“Are you going through with the ranch deal with Alex?”

“I don’t know.”

“What about us?”

“Us?” Her frown wasn’t encouraging, and it didn’t help his growing frustration, either.

“I thought there was an
us
. I though we were moving toward that.”

“I think we are—”

“Think?” He took a step back, the words he wanted to speak clogging up his throat. “You
think
we are? After all what we’ve shared? I
know
we have something special.”

The anger in his voice masked the fear that she was considering leaving.

“I did. I really did.”

“Did.” He pounced on that word. “So what happened? I thought we were creating a relationship, you and me.”

“I’m sorry,” was all she could manage.

His fear grew, which only stoked his anger more. “Sorry. What does that mean?”

“It means I’m sorry.”

“For what? For spending time with me? For leading me on? For making me think that something was happening between us?”

He knew he should stop, but he rushed headlong, heedless, afraid.

Then he saw a spark of anger kindle in her eyes, saw her lips thin, her hands clench.

And he knew he had pushed her too hard.

* * *

His anger was a surprise and, at the same time, it ignited hers.

How dare he accuse her of leading him on?

She straightened to her full height. There was no way she was going to let him have the advantage of height, towering over her in his anger.

Though in spite of that, she still had to look up at him.

Still had to look up into those eyes, which only a few moments ago had looked at her with such affection, but now were narrowed in antagonism.

“I was never leading you on,” she shot back, still trying to figure out how things had shifted so quickly.

“So something was happening between us.”

“
Is
happening.” The words slipped out and she could see from the way his expression shifted, he had caught it, as well.

“Then why is Alex still texting you? Why are you taking a job I’m sensing you feel obligated to? Is it the money?”

“That helps.”

“So that’s what this all comes down to?” He released a short laugh and her back stiffened.

“You know, it’s so easy for you to judge me,” she said, trying to keep her own rising emotions under control. “You have a mother who cares about you. People who you matter to you. You’ve probably never had to scrabble for your next dollar.”

“I can’t imagine you doing that,” Vic said. “You’ve had a good job for many years. Don’t tell me you haven’t managed to save up.”

In spite of her resolve, her anger grew. “Okay, I won’t tell you how Harvey smiled at me, all the while bilking thousands out of the joint business account that took us years to set up. An account that he emptied in days. How I thought I trusted him and as soon as he had a choice between work and me, he chose work and he took our money. You know, he not only left me at the altar. He left me flat broke. It’s not something I’m proud of. Not something I let anyone know. I’m supposed to be so smart, so good with money, and some lying, sneaky...man took everything from me. You talk about buying this place, and while I’d love to sell it to you, I told you that I can’t afford to. I need every penny of it to pay for this business.”

“Which you’re still leaving to run.”

How could she explain to him what this meant to her without making it look as though she wanted to leave him? She wanted the security and independence of her own business, but she wanted him, too.

But she couldn’t have both. Choosing the business meant losing him. Choosing the ranch meant losing herself.

“What about Jodie? And Erin? You seem to be able to make your decisions in your own little world.”

“Because that’s what I learned,” she shot back. “All my life I’ve had to be in charge. When we left this ranch, my mother was a wreck. We moved into my grandmother’s house on sufferance. I had to take care of my sisters because my grandmother barely tolerated us. After my mother died, even more so. We were shunted here in the summer to give my grandmother a break. My father didn’t know what to do with us so, once again I was in charge. When my grandmother got sick, guess who took care of her? Even Harvey required sacrifices from me. Saving money so we could build up our business and our future together. I’ve given everything I have to give to everyone I’ve ever known.”

Her voice caught as the humiliation of that crashed in on her again. But she wasn’t going to let that determine her future. “All of my life it’s been about other people. Taking care of everyone else. Watching out for everyone else.”

She drew in a slow breath, her anger slowly easing out of her. “Just for once, I’d like to think of me. Make a decision for me.”

Though he held her angry gaze, his own eyes narrowed, she sensed a shifting in his attitude. As if he was at least considering what she had to say.

And just then a muffled ringtone sounded in the office.

She pulled her cell phone out of her back pocket and glanced at it with a sigh of resignation. “It’s Alex.”

“Of course it is.” Vic drew back, and anything she thought she’d seen there was replaced with an icy stare. “Then I better go.”

He gave her a curt nod, grabbed his hat and dropped it on his head as he spun on his heel.

Then he left.