Page 52 of The Cowboy Comes Home

“I don’t want your pity.” It came out hot, angry.

Her eyebrows shot upward. “Pity? That’s what you think this is?”

“What else?”

Even as it came out, he hated that he sounded that way. Snarly. And her expression bounced it back at him, as did her tone of voice.

“How about respect, and even a little awe? How about the fact that you make me feel inspired? That what I feel is admiration, and…and other things…”

Her voice trailed away, sounding entirely different than when she’d started that well-deserved retort, and he noticed with a little jolt of shock that her cheeks were pink.

He felt a little rush of embarrassment himself when he realized, far too late, that they’d carried on this very personal-seeming conversation in front of a now-staring audience. Not knowing what else to do but fairly positive he should keep his mouth shut, he grabbed the clasp end of the lead line and went after Splatter.

And if Lobo bit him in annoyance at interrupting his playtime, it would just put the capper on his afternoon.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“He what?”

Emily tapped a finger on her first mug of coffee of the new day. She looked across the small table near the front window of Java Time at Nic Baylor.

“You heard me. He thought I was pitying him.”

Nic was silent for a moment. Emily knew her old friend always thought carefully before she spoke. Or she had until she’d run afoul of one Jackson Thorpe. Then, she’d once admitted sheepishly, she’d apparently lost all governors on her words.

Emily was thankful now for the urge she’d given in to, to come here for a chilled macchiato rather than her usual hot coffee at home, especially given it was already eighty-five degrees at nine in the morning. She’d left Lobo at home on this, her second day off in a row after the chaos of rodeo week. He hadn’t protested, and she’d left him lounging in the spot he’d chosen on her couch, in the direct path of the flow from the air conditioning. He’d had enough of having to be out walking the sidewalks in this heat all week, and he and his paws deserved a break.

She, on the other hand, apparently had needed to pour out her silly story to someone. And so she had given her old friend a blow-by-blow of the encounter yesterday. It made sense, she told herself. It had, after all, happened on Nic’s ranch, so why not her?

It had nothing to do with the fact that she was engaged to Tucker’s best friend.

“You talked for quite a while,” Nic said. “I noticed, even while I was boggled by what your brilliant canine did with Splatter.”

Emily seized on the diversion. “He is brilliant, isn’t he? I talked to Chance last night, to ask him if Lobo had any experience with horses, and he said only what he’d had there with them. With no sign he shared any skills with Logan.”

“Amazing. We may need you on call for Splatter, if we’re going to get him calmed down enough for Jeremy one day. In fact, you should stop by the ranch this afternoon, if you’ve got the time.”

“I’m sure Lobo would love it.”

“And you?”

Emily blinked. “What?”

“You going to mind trekking out to our place? And…Tucker’s place?”

And there they were, back at it. So much for a diversion.

“I’ll be fine,” she said.

“So where,” Nic asked, “did he get the idea you pitied him?”

She sighed. She had brought it up, after all. “I don’t know. All I said was I was glad he hadn’t been hurt.”

“Nothing before that?”

Emily’s brow furrowed as she worked back through what she’d said yesterday there in the corral, trying to find anything that might have set him off. “I did say, earlier, when we were talking about how he went back to the hospital that put him back together, how hard that must have been for him. That it made me feel horrible, just thinking about it.”

“Ahh.” Nic said it as if that was the answer.

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