Page 44 of Pretend To Be My Cowboy
“Then it’s a deal,” he said, his smile making her heart glow in her chest.
“It’s a deal,” she said.
14
The next day Emma sat out on the ranch’s back porch and stared at her phone.
Once again, staring accomplished nothing.
“One call and then you can have a riding lesson,” she reminded herself.
This time she glanced around to make sure no one was watching her talk to herself.
Was it crazier to talk aloud to herself or to pigs?
Maybe Nash knew the answer, because for Emma, the jury was still out. She tapped her fingers against the phone and let her gaze roam over the calming scenery.
The wind moved through the grass and trees, and birds flew overhead, their sweet twittering enough to make her smile. Other than that, the scene was peaceful and still. No one was in a hurry, there was no need to rush. She was so far removed from the bustle of Chicago that she could be on another planet.
Before she knew it, her blood pressure had calmed and when she lifted the phone to dial Daisy’s number, she was no longer on the verge of a freakout.
Sure, maybe her younger sister Rose had been disappointingly wishy-washy and seemingly uninterested in Emma and the ranch. And Dahlia might have been brisk to the point of rude. But this was a new sister. Another chance.
Daisy answered on the first ring. “Hello? Is this Emma?”
Emma blinked in surprise. “Uh… hi, Daisy. Yes, this is Emma.” She didn’t hide the shock in her voice, and Daisy’s light laughter filled the other end of the line.
“Rose told me you’d be calling,” she explained.
“Oh. Right.” Emma laughed too...at herself for not having guessed the obvious. “For a second there, I thought maybe you were psychic.”
Daisy’s voice was filled with amusement. “I like to think I have a special connection to the spiritual realm, but it doesn’t give me telepathic caller ID.”
Emma wasn’t sure how to respond because she wasn’t sure if her sister was serious. Daisy laughed again and Emma blinked, shifting the phone to look at it for a second to make sure she’d called the right number.
So far, Daisy was nothing like either of her sisters. Which she supposed wasn’t a surprise. It wasn’t like she and Lizzy were anything alike either. Aside from the blonde hair, they were as different as night and day.
Emma felt a stab of guilt and shoved thoughts of Lizzy aside.
She and Nash had walked back to the house together last night, and while he’d cleaned up, she’d started the grill. Once he joined her on the back porch, taking over at the grill while she put together a salad, she’d forgotten all about the fact that she owed Lizzy a call.
It wasn’t until this morning that she realized she hadn’t told Lizzy about her change of plans yet.
But Lizzy could wait a little while longer because Daisy was chatting away like a happy little parakeet. “Rose didn’t tell me much, she never does. She just gave me a heads up that you’d be calling about Frank’s ranch. So, what do you do, Emma? Are you a lawyer or something? Is that why you’re sorting all of this out?”
Emma laughed. She couldn’t help it. “Uh, no. I teach kindergarten.”
“Oh, that must be so rewarding,” Daisy said. Her entire tone was sweet and excited and…kind.
“I’m on summer break at the moment,” Emma said. “So I thought I’d come see the ranch, and yeah… I guess, it kind of fell to me to sort this all out.”
“Well, you are officially awesome for doing that.”
Emma let out a relieved sigh. Finally, a newfound sister she felt a connection with.
“What about you?” she asked. “What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a musician,” Daisy said in a sing-song voice. “I’ll play just about any instrument put in front of me, but guitar is my favorite. Oh, and I sing too.”
