Page 89 of Pretend To Be My Cowboy
Her phone buzzed with a text, but she ignored it. She’d stopped hoping that she’d hear from April or Sierra before her flight on Tuesday. It was a stupid idea to try and stick around until everyTwas crossed andIdotted.
Mr. Billman would be able to handle the signatures, and she could make pointless phone calls and leave unanswered voicemails from anywhere.
For the first time since she’d arrived in Aspire, Emma was homesick for Chicago. She missed Lizzy and Sarah. She missed her parents.
For a moment, she’d entertained that notion that she belonged here—in Aspire, at this ranch—but now she had to wonder how much of that sense of belonging had been tied up in her infatuation with Nash.
She wasn’t some cowgirl, and she never would be.
She got ready for the wedding in record time and with nothing better to do, headed out to say hello to Myrtle, Big Bird, and Snuffleupagus. She’d miss them, and Duke.
Emma sighed as she leaned over the fence, careful to keep her dress away from the dirty wood. She hoped no one noticed she was in the same outfit as last night, but she’d thrown the dress into her bag on a whim. She certainly hadn’t been thinking of wedding dates when she initially packed in Chicago.
But Lizzy always made her take one nice dress.“You never know what life will throw at you and there’s nothing worse than not having the right thing to wear.”
It was funny how right and wrong her sister could be.
Life had definitely thrown Emma a curveball, but right this second, she didn’t really care what she was wearing. Pretty fabric wasn’t strong enough to keep a wounded heart from hurting.
“I’ll be back to visit,” she said to Big Bird, her voice trembling as she wondered if that was, in fact, true. “I’m sure I’ll have to come back to sort out the signatures. Maybe I’ll visit when Daisy’s here too, you never know. It might be nice to meet the one sister who actually seems nice.”
Snuffleupagus snuffled.
She nodded. “Exactly. So you see, it’s not like I’m leaving forever, now am I? I’ll be back.” Her voice pitched on the last word and she sucked in a breath to stop herself from blubbering.
The pigs didn’t seem to care that she was an emotional wreck.
She dabbed her eyes quickly before her mascara could smear. This was ridiculous. She was homesick for Chicago and yet somehow homesick for this ranch—and she hadn’t even left yet.
“Honestly,” she said to the pigs. “Is it even possible to be homesick for a place that isn’t home?”
They didn’t answer.
“Careful now,” Kit’s voice behind her made her start. “Don’t start taking advice from Myrtle.” He stopped beside her, looking better than ever in a suit and tie. His too-long blond hair was slicked back neatly, and his jaw was freshly shaven.
Even JJ was neatened up, wearing a button-down shirt with a bolo tie, his hair pulled back into a low ponytail, as usual. “No, ma’am,” he agreed with Kit. “Kit’s right. Myrtle here has been known to give some horrible advice.”
She found herself torn between a sob and a laugh. She really had to get her emotions under control before Nash showed up to give her a ride to the church. “What kind of bad advice?”
“Well, she convinced Cody here to ask out Paige Luellen and that ended with Cody getting a black eye,” Kit said.
Cody was walking over to join them with a rueful shake of his head at his brother’s antics. “Not from Paige.” He put a hand to his heart. “I’m a proper gentleman.”
Kit leaned forward with that easy grin of his, his eyes dancing with laughter. “It seemed no one told little Cody here that Paige already had a boyfriend.”
Emma laughed at Cody’s rueful shrug, and the fact that this big man who towered over her was referred to as ‘little’ anything.
The guys kept up their teasing and their laughter, and Emma laughed along with them, her heart full with emotion.
She knew what they were doing. They were trying to cheer her up, and while they did get her to laugh a bit, the fact that they were trying made her want to weep.
She’d miss them when she left.
They hadn’t been at the rehearsal dinner last night, but they must have caught wind of the fact that she was upset—or maybe she was just doing a terrible job of covering up the fact that her heart felt bruised and battered.
Either way, their obvious attempts to cheer her were so sweet it made her heart ache in a whole different way.
“Uh oh,” JJ said, taking two exaggerated, long strides away from her like she had cooties. “Boss man comin’,” he hollered to the others.
