Page 3 of Unforgettable Cowboy
“He agreed to board my horse, too.My place isn’t safe.Mom’s been leasing the homestead to Jim Reed and his sons since we left.The fields are in good shape, but the corrals are wrecked.”She looked past him to the lighted barn window, wishing that Wade had managed to stay on his horse that morning.Hayes was studying her intently when she turned back to him, making her wonder just what he saw.A woman he hadn’t set eyes on in almost ten years who now meant nothing to him?Or was he, like her, feeling the tug of unfinished business?
“Do you have an update on Wade?Have you seen him?”His expression shifted at the question.“I stopped by the hospital earlier,” she explained, “but I couldn’t get any information.”
“He was sleeping when I stopped by, but yes, I saw him.”
“Good.”The word hung, the silence emphasizing the many things that had been left unsaid between them because of the chicken-hearted way she’d ended things.She wasn’t a coward—far from it.But after watching everything her mom had gone through, her feelings for Hayes had terrified her back then.
“Are you okay?”
Bailey didn’t know if he was referring to her lapse into silence, or her physical well-being after being knocked around.“I am.”
She was also itching to get to the safety of her truck where she could catch her breath both figuratively and literally.She’d known that at some point she’d run into Hayes again, but in her mind, they’d have a cool, it’s-been-a-long-time-hope-you’re-doing-well type of reunion.Adult-like.No running, no punching.
“Areyouokay?”
Hayes opened his mouth, as if surprised at the question, then closed it again.Bailey studied his ridiculously handsome face as she waited for an answer, a face that had gotten better with age.How was it that men could do that?“Yeah,” he said grimly.“I’m good.”
“Then I should go.”There was no point in continuing this conversation now that they’d settled the important issues.They were both okay and neither of them was there to rob the ranch or steal a horse.
“Will you be back?”he asked.“To work I mean?”
“That’s the deal I made with Wade—unless you want to change it?”
“No.”
She gestured toward the barn.“I didn’t get a chance to turn off the light, but the horses have been taken care of.”
“I’ll get the light.”
Bailey nodded and started toward her truck, nerves thrumming—the aftermath of being chased in the dark and then having to face the guy she’d ghosted so many years ago.
Oh, Wade.Why couldn’t you have stayed on that mare?
*
Questions.Hayes hada ton of them, but the top two were why was Bailey staying at her old place after not setting foot on it for a decade, and why had she left him so abruptly years ago?
The second question had rattled around in his brain since he found the note she’d written him, becoming more a matter of curiosity than anything else as time passed—or so he’d thought until he’d come face-to-face with his runaway cowgirl again.
Maybe he’d get some answers.Or maybe it was a good time to leave well enough alone.
After checking on the mares in the barn, Hayes shut out the light and let himself out into the cool night air, wondering if his uncle had purchased the palomino beauty in the stall next to the injured roan or if she was Bailey’s boarded horse.The mare was obviously the culmination of a careful breeding program, showing all the characteristics of a classic quarter horse—dainty head, large eyes, sturdy well-muscled body and a square stance.Not Wade’s type of horse.He was a big believer in plain brown horses of questionable breeding and the palomino was well beyond the quality of any horse Hayes had ever seen on the ranch, including Trev’s roping horses.Whoever owned the mare, they had a prize on their hands.
Hayes let out a long breath as he headed for the dark house.It had been a twilight zone of a day, starting with his sticky-note resignation and ending with the discovery that the woman who’d wrecked him was once again working for his uncle.He rubbed the area just below his clavicle where she’d connected with her punch.He’d have a bruise and he was probably lucky she hadn’t landed her punch any higher.She might have broken her hand and/or dislocated his jaw.
Weird, weird night.
And it would no doubt be followed by a strange morning.
Hayes pushed open the door of the house he’d grown up in and was struck by the scents of his childhood—cooking, because the exhaust fan had never worked in the kitchen, ranch mud, and horse.A dirty saddle blanket lay in a crumpled heap next to the washing machine.Hayes hoped that Wade didn’t plan to wash the thing.The hair would do a number on the filter.
After hanging his jacket in the mudroom and kicking on his boots, he snapped on the kitchen light.The room showed the usual signs of bachelor living: a half-rebuilt carburetor on the kitchen table, the usual jumble of mail and things that tended to collect when one lived alone.But there were no dishes in the sink and the coffee pot had been cleaned.Wade had his routines.
Hayes went through the house to his old bedroom, a small room with a window that opened silently—very handy back in the day.It had taken a lot of constant maintenance with a bar of soap to keep it that way, and the only time he’d been caught coming in when he was already supposed to be in had been after he’d slacked off on window-squeak maintenance.Wade had been the kind of guardian who wasn’t all that concerned about school or grades—as long as Hayes and his brothers were passing, he didn’t care how much time they’d spent skipping class to practice for rodeo—but he didn’t want his boys out drinking and partying until all hours.Hayes and his brothers knew that was because Wade had been a wild child himself.A “do as I say, not as I do” type of situation that the brothers had taken in stride.As they’d grown, and heard stories about their uncle, they realized the changes he’d embraced when he’d become their guardian.Hayes’s late father had been the quiet Matthews brother, deeply into home and family; Wade could not be tied down.Ironic that he’d ended up being a damned good father to not only Hayes and Trev, but also to Jordan, their foster brother, who’d come to them as a toddler.
Despite his spotty school attendance, Hayes had managed to nail down a couple of scholarships but had decided to go the rodeo route instead of heading to college.He sometimes wondered if that was why Bailey had dumped him.He’d been two years into his career the summer they’d gotten together, but rodeo wasn’t the most secure life path, and Bailey—even though she would have denied it with her dying breath—was looking for security.She never mentioned family troubles, as if they’d go away if she didn’t speak of them, but Hayes knew that things had been rough for her the last years of high school before her stepdad had moved on to greener pastures and a younger woman.Bailey, with her cowgirl swagger and fearless façade, had driven him nuts.
Now she was back on the Tree Fork, and he had the feeling that very little had changed in that regard.
