Page 29 of Wrangling Hearts
Even if that went against every instinct I had.
Mama sent me home, knowing there was work to be done at the ranch, and I’d only been back maybe an hour or two when the peaceful quiet of the day was shattered by Hurricane Delilah tearing through my property.
I knew it had gone bad when her Jeep skidded to a stop along the dirt of my driveway, the windows rattling with Joan Jett. I knew it had gone terribly when she hopped out with a Pixy Stick hanging out of her mouth—a replacement for a cigarette. Delilah had only ever smoked when she was wasted or livid, but stopped cold turkey when my mom got her diagnosis and swapped it for artificially flavored sugar.
My heart flew to my throat, and I sprang to my feet, racing over to her. Ripping the paper tube of sugar out of her mouth, I asked, “What happened?”
“Every bad thing that could’ve happened, fucking happened.” She pulled another stick out of her bra, ripped it open, and dumped blue powder in her mouth. “First, I got lost. Then, the wifi went out. Then, after we spent fifteen minutes on that, theprojector froze.Then,they told me I only had twenty minutes instead of forty-five because they had another presentation after me. By that point, I was frazzled, and you know how I get when that happens.”
I took a step back, dread weighing me down like lead. “What did you say?” Delilah was unpredictable, so there was no telling what happened.
She looked out to the pasture where the horses were grazing. “Well, I met Richard Cavendish, the owner, and that was going okay until I called him Captain because he was wearing Sperrys, trying to crack a joke. He didn’t find it that amusing. At all.” She looked at me then with the kind of strung-out, feral look that comes with a sugar high. “Who the fuck wearsboat shoesto a business meeting about training horses? Dude isweird.”
Another Pixy Stick down the hatch. Just like my dreams. But I guess it could have been worse. I could have gotten a call from Colt to pick her up from the police station. It wouldn’t have been the first time.
Her blue tongue darted out, wetting her lips, and she let out a heavy breath. “I’m so sorry, bear. I really tried. I told them all the facts as fast as I could, but I’m pretty sure I mixed some stuff up and probably bombed it.” Her eyes drifted shut in defeat, head lowered to the ground. “I knew you should’ve gone instead of me.”
Swallowing back a scream, I ran a hand down her arm, squeezing her hand. No matter how upset I was, it still hurt to see her so distraught over this. “It’s okay. We’ll figure something out.” I reached inside her shirt and grabbed the wad of Pixy Sticks. “Now stop this before your teeth fall out.”
She cracked a smile then—that was blue—and met my gaze. “You don’t hate me?” She was as close to looking like a battered puppy as I'd ever seen her in the twenty-plus years we’d beenfriends. It told me how much this meant to her, and that meant more to me than a bombed presentation ever would.
I scoffed. “Of course, I don’t hate you. Are you crazy?”
“At least fifteen different people have said so. Including you. More than once.”
I rolled my eyes, smiling, and wrapped her in a quick hug. “I don’t hate you, Delilah. Now go home before the sugar crash hits.”
She nodded solemnly and went back to her car. “Yeah, yeah, I’m outta here. I’ll call to check in later.”
We waved bye, and as she was pulling out, someone else was pulling in. A dark gray F-450 with a rumbling engine and an M with a circle around it on the door.
A long, steadying breath left me, and I placed my hands on my hips.Here we go.
Beau slid out of the truck dressed in a suit. Or at least what was left of one. A white button-down shirt, black slacks, his hat, and polished boots. It was criminal how his forearms looked with the sleeves rolled up. And I didn’t even want to think about the tease of tan flesh of his chest from the first two buttons he had undone.
My dumbass heart skipped a beat at the sight.
Suddenly, the anger I felt because he hadn’t spoken to me since the fundraiser hit like a slap to the face. I crossed my arms over my chest and forced myself to sound as uninterested as possible. “What are you doing here?”
“Don’t tell me you took that deal, Claire.” He stormed up to me like a bat out of hell, stopping so close, I had to tilt my head back to look at him.
I blinked. My brows pinched together so hard it almost hurt. “What deal? From Hollis?”
“Yeah. From Hollis.”
My anger ratcheted up a notch. “Are you insane? You really think I’d sell out to that piece of shit grandaddy’s boy?”
He took a step closer. “Well, you weren’t at the Cavendish presentation, so where were you?” He asked, demanding. As if he had the fucking right to know. As if he were my keeper. One dance didn’t earn him that right.
I shoved him away from me. “At the hospital, you asshole!”
Beau’s anger evaporated like steam as he staggered back. His voice was low, stunned. “What? Why?”
“What do you mean, why? Everyone knows why, Beau. My mom is dying!” I yelled.
My eyes went wide, and I slammed a hand over my mouth. I hadn’t meant to say that. Especially not to him. My hand shook against my face, the grief suddenly too raw to keep contained. Too real. I couldn’t even be embarrassed that Beau was seeing me like this, too lost in the torrent of emotions taking over.
I’d never said those words out loud before. Never let myself even think them for more than a second. Following some stupid, childish logic that if I didn’t acknowledge it, then it wasn’t real. But now they reverberated through me, smashing into the defenses I’d built these last three years like a sledgehammer.
