Page 32 of The Way to a Cowboy's Heart

She probably didn’t have enough fingers and toes to count all the friends back home who would love to come to a place like this, just to chill out from the hustle of the city. She vowed to make it her mission, before leaving for England, to get the word out about the Hard Eight ranch. It seemed the least she could do.

She lay back on the couch, staring at the ceiling, thinking of Liam and the way he’d kissed her cheek. Maybe he didn’t want to scare her off. Maybe a kiss on the cheek would be all she would get from him. Maybe the ground rules they’d set would stand in the way of anything else happening between them. Was that best? How could she know? She’d put herself in this situation. And the last thing she wanted to do was to lead him on. To make him think… think… what? That there was a future for them?

Arrrghhh.But what if there was or could be somehow?

No, she was moving thousands of miles away and the chances of anything long-distance happening between them was… nil. She’d done this to herself. Now she had to thread the needle with him here on his own ranch. She knew very well that his invitation here had the same motives her accepting it had. Both were curious. But more than that, she had found herself—more than once and for reasons she couldn’t explain—imagining asomehowlife with him.

*

Emily woke witha start a few hours later and realized she’d fallen asleep on the couch. The sun was heading down. She looked at her watch. Almost late for dinner.

Oh, no!

Quickly, she changed, splashed water on her face, and fixed her mascara and lip gloss. Then she headed out the door toward the main house. On the way there, she passed a corral full of horses, several of whom stretched their necks over the fence to say hello. She stopped at the closest, a pretty dun mare whose velvety, whiskery muzzle aimed to get a good sniff of her.

“Well, hello there,” she said softly, stretching her palm out beneath her nose.

The horse gave her palm a nuzzle, no doubt looking for treats. Finding none, the mare exhaled sharply but stretched her neck out for some scratches.

Emily happily obliged, giving the spot behind her ears special attention. “Yes, you’re a pretty one, aren’t you then? Nothing tonight, but I promise to bring you something tomorrow. What’s your name I wonder?”

“Her name,” Liam said from behind her, “is Winnie. Winnie the Wonder Horse.”

Emily turned to find him standing near, watching her interaction with the mare. “Oh, hello. I—She’s beautiful. And friendly.”

“Ryan’s been working with her for weeks now. She’s a regular teddy bear of a mare. All bluff on the outside, all soft on the inside. I think she likes you.”

“Winnie.” She pulled a hand down the mare’s jaw. “The feeling’s mutual, I assure you. I can’t get over walking out my door to… to this. Horses saying hello. Is she rideable?”

“Not yet. She’s got a few months to go before we can trust that she’s ready. But Ry has high hopes for her. She’s bonded with his other horse, Khòla, an auction horse he trained up himself last summer.” He pointed to a pretty Appaloosa horse standing near Winnie. “Winnie came in not too long ago from the BLM herd and took to Khòla right away.”

“The BLM?”

“Bureau of Land Management. They pull wild horses off the range and instead of slaughtering them—which used to be their go-to solution—they give them to ranchers with spare graze land to keep. The bureau subsidizes them and covers their medical expenses should they have any, but we feed them and care for them, try to get them adopted out if they’re considered trainable, like Winnie here. Otherwise, they’ve got a home for life. Just not running wild anymore.”

“Lucky them. But it’s a bit sad they can’t run free.”

“Yeah. But their life is much more predictable here and they will live years longer than their wild brothers. And they’ve got lots of room to run here.”

She gave Winnie one last pat. “It is peaceful here. So peaceful I fell sound asleep on that couch. I almost missed dinner.”

“I would have gotten you. Are you ready to meet the hoard? They’re all here, anxious to meet you.”

With the barn lights shining behind him, she could just make out the anticipation on his face. She smiled at him. “Lead the way, kind sir.”

“I always say that I don’t believe I’m a chef. I try to be a storyteller.”

–Jose Andres–

Chapter Six

Liam leaned backin his chair, sipping on a whiskey rocks as the delicious meal wound down, watching Emily masterfully interact with his siblings and mom without missing a beat. He’d been prepared to run interference for her from all the questions he knew his siblings would have for her about England, New York, and their relationship. But as it happened, Shay and her fiancé, Cooper, Will and his wife, Izzy, and even Cami and her almost-fiancé, Gus, showed restraint. Instead of peppering her with questions, they plied her with funny—embarrassing—stories about him and some about each other. All of which beat the alternative—the interrogation of Emily—for which he was grateful.

From time to time, Emily met his gaze with a reassuring smile or a wink, and as the meal went on, he began to relax. Even when Will told the story of eight-year-old Liam getting his foot caught in the loft ladder and hanging upside down until Will and Shay finally found him and couldn’t stop laughing.

“Yeah, it was funny unless you were upside down and the blood was rushing to your brain,” Liam allowed. “But as I recall, Will, it was you, the next week, who fell into a gopher hole up to your knee. I think you were stuck there for a good twenty minutes before I got you out.”

“Before you stopped laughing long enough to get me out. Payback,” he said, chuckling at the memory.

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