Page 44 of My Billionaire Cowboy Protector

“How could you lie to me like that? How could you humiliate me? I’ll never forgive you for this.”

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

“Why did you tell me you were engaged to that woman? I welcomed her as part of the family.”

“The words just blurted out of my mouth when you were talking about how I needed to get over Catherine and I needed to fall in love again. I never guessed that things would go this far,” Lane said.

“I can’t believe you,” Caroline said in disgust.

“I’m sorry. The truth is that Taylor and I do have real feelings for each other. I’m not ready to say that I’m in love with her, but I do see us heading down that road. When the burning board fell on her and I thought that she was badly hurt, my heart nearly stopped. I couldn’t imagine losing her.”

“That does sound like love to me,” his mother said, slightly mollified.

“I don’t think love happens that fast, but I will say that I care for her. We’ll see where this relationship goes.”

“Mm-hmm,” his mother said.

Chapter 18: Taylor

“How are things going?” Alice asked, sliding into the booth across from her daughter.

Taylor shrugged and said, “Alright, I guess.”

She tried not to look around because she felt like everyone was staring at her.

“Anthony had told everyone in town that we had faked our engagement, and now had even gone as far as to insinuate that I had made the whole thing up. After all, everyone knows that I’m just the poor widow woman who wanted my ranch back. He told everyone that he figured that I had done it to scam Lane. After all, why would a handsome billionaire want to be engaged to a widowed woman like me,” Taylor said bitterly.

“Everyone knows that you two were an item way before this fake engagement happened,” Alice said. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much. It’ll blow over soon enough.”

“I guess so,” Taylor said. “I just won’t come to town for a while. Even though Lane bought the ranch and turned it over to me, right now it’s just a piece of land with a house, some barns, and corrals on it. I still have to keep working to make enough money to buy stock. I’ll just hide out on the Johnson’s ranch and avoid town for a while.”

“Poor Baby. You’ve gone through some really rough times lately, haven’t you?”

“It’s been a struggle, that’s for sure.”

“Just let ’em look,” Alice said. “If their lives are so boring that they have nothing better to do than to focus on you, then that’s on them.”

“I suppose so,” Taylor replied.

Melissa told her about the same thing on the phone that night. “Since when do you care what people think about you? Do they pay your bills?”

“True enough.”

Regardless of the support, Taylor was still embarrassed. “How am I going to show my face in church Sunday? Everyone knows my sin.”

Then, Jesus’ words popped into her mind.He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.

Even though other people’s sins weren’t public knowledge, they still owned their own sins, since no man was perfect.

That made Taylor feel a lot better.

Lane came back from the meeting the next morning.

“It looks like the bill is going to go in our favor. When I pointed out that even the environmentalists liked to eat, they decided that a lot of compromises would be possible,” Lane said. “The farmers and ranchers explained that it was hard enough to stay in business as it is. Between all the government regulations and corporate farming, independent farmers and ranchers were fighting to keep their heads above water.”

“That’s why it was good that you went,” Colton said. “You have a way of opening people’s eyes to the real issues.”

“It wasn’t just me. There were a lot of us present.”

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