Page 54 of Cowboy Falling Hard

“Good morning,” he said to the farrier who was bent over the hoof of a sparkling bay horse.

The man looked up, his emerald green eyes glinting in the light. “Top o’ the morning to ye,” he said with a grin that showed straight, white teeth. “Folks call me Tadhg.”

There was a bit of stubble on the man’s face, but he was the kind of fellow that girls might find handsome, Dwight supposed. He definitely had an easy grin and a cheerful way about him that put a person at ease immediately.

“I’m Dwight.”

“You must be the bloke the lass was telling me would be coming.” The man gave him another glance, then looked back down at the horse’s hoof and ran a tool along the bottom of it. A thin piece of hoof shaved easily off. “She said to send ye in the direction of the office.”

“Thanks.”

The sale barn was sprawling, with lots of pens and aisles, but Dwight had been there enough by now that he knew the general direction he needed to go, found a set of stairs, and made his way to the office.

There were a few lights on, although it wasn’t lit as brightly as it was on an auction evening.

The door to the office was open, and Sadie stood with Orchid beside the desk.

“I saw him with my own eyes, and that kiss was not the kind of kiss that a man gives a friend or coworker.”

Orchid looked up, her eyes probably drawn by his movement in the doorway. “I don’t know what to do. Let’s think about it. I mean, someone’s going to have to tell her. But I don’t want it to be me. I’m sure you don’t want to, either.”

“No. I don’t. You know her better than I do. You’re probably the closest friend she has in the world, but I’m the one who saw him.” Sadie looked at Dwight, then she jerked her head. “If you need me to go with you, text me.”

“I will. Thanks for the apples.”

Sadie waved at Dwight, and he waved back before he put his arm around Orchid, who had walked over to him and had seemed to have wilted since last night.

He waited until they were down the stairs and walking down the aisle before he said, “Some kind of bad news.”

“The very worst.”

They greeted Tadhg but didn’t stop until they’d walked out to the parking lot. He had parked beside her car, and they stood in front of both vehicles.

Orchid turned toward him, and to his surprise, she stepped forward, wrapping both arms around him and laying her head on his chest.

He wasn’t sure what the problem was, but he was happy with the direction things were taking. He held her tight, stroking down her hair, wishing that it hadn’t been bad news that caused her to turn to him.

“Oh, Dwight. I don’t want to do it.”

“Can you tell me?”

“I told you about Katie last night. I mentioned her husband. I... I didn’t know. It was coincidence, honest.”

“What was?” he asked after she didn’t say anything more.

“Sadie just told me she saw Katie’s husband, Russel, meeting a woman at a gas station where she and Coleman had stopped for fuel when they were bringing their horses home from the show. She said she saw them get out of their cars, and the woman, whom Sadie didn’t know, ran to him, they kissed, not a friendly kiss, and then she got into his car. They drove away.”

Her body shook, like she was sobbing or holding back sobs. He held her tighter, put his hand under her hair, and stroked her neck.

“Wow.” He didn’t know what else to say. “And now you need to tell her.”

“Someone has to. I would be so angry at my friends if they saw my husband do that, if they knew he was not being faithful to me, and they didn’t say anything to me. But I suppose like everyone else in the world, I don’t want to be the one who bears the bad tidings. She’s not going to like this information. It’s going to destroy her, going to blow up her family, even if she and Russel are able to work this out, she’ll never be the same. I don’t want to do that.”

“You aren’t. He’s the one who did it.”

“You know what they say about shooting the messenger. He is the one who did it, but I’m the one who’s going to cause her pain. As long as she doesn’t know, it doesn’t hurt.”

“And you said yourself, you’d want to know. As your friend I’d want you to know. I’m not just saying that. It’s wrong for a married couple to keep secrets and sneak around behind each other’s backs. If you can’t be a man of character, you don’t deserve to have a woman who is. That’s just the way it should be.”

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