Page 64 of Heart Like a Cowboy

Egan groaned, and he could almost hear Tilly repeating some of that in the speech she’d no doubt give at the life celebration. The woman was trying to shame Alana into ditching any plans to put aside her widowhood status and move on with her life. Tilly might be trying to repair her own illusions about her son, too, so Egan figured both Alana and he were going to have to steel themselves up for whatever Tilly threw at them. Not just at the life celebration but afterward, too.

Tilly might believe the interview would cause Alana and him to rethink this fling they’d started. But it only made Egan more resolved to go through with it.

Even if it turned out to be a mistake.

“Let me know if you want to go outside and have a better look at the horses,” Egan said, giving his dad’s arm a gentle squeeze.

“I will.” But his tone didn’t show much interest in him doing that. “You’re heading to see Alana?” he asked.

That hadn’t taken any ESP on his dad’s part. If Maybell and Effie had filled him in about Tilly and the interview, then one of them would have also mentioned the gossip about Alana and him.

“I am,” Egan verified.

“Good,” his dad said, surprising him. “Any fool can see how she feels about you. I figure that’s why Tilly’s giving her so much backlash, because she can see that Alana’s falling in love with you.”

That stopped Egan in his tracks, and he shook his head. He nearly blurted out that if people were seeing anything in Alana, it wasn’t love for him. It was the blazing attraction.

Wasn’t it?

Yeah, it had to be. Egan had just gotten used to the notion of a fling, and he didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to go beyond that.

Egan’s pace wasn’t quite so hurried as he said goodbye to his dad and went down the stairs and out the door so he could head to his truck. He didn’t make it there, though, before the silver Mercedes turned into the driveway. Egan didn’t recognize the vehicle nor the blond-haired driver behind the wheel, and he wondered if this was someone here about a meeting Egan had forgotten or hadn’t known about.

A man wearing khakis and a white shirt stepped out, and judging from the way his attention zoomed in on Egan, he knew who Egan was. He came closer, extending his hand for Egan to shake.

“Egan,” the man said. “We meet at last. I’m Anton Ewing.”

Egan had already moved to shake his hand, but he stopped. And cursed. Not silently, either. Because he knew who this was.

Colleen’s lover.

Even though this was the man Colleen had left him for, over the years Egan had purposely avoided photos or any gossip that might come up about Anton. He’d done that because he hadn’t wanted one tidbit of info about him in his head. Now, here he was, right in front of him where he was impossible to avoid. But not for long.

“I’m on my way out,” Egan said and started toward his truck again.

“I thought we should meet, and that way if we had any differences to settle, we could do that before Jack’s life celebration,” Anton called out to him.

Egan stopped again, turned and faced him. A lot of questions fired through Egan’s head, but the only one he managed to voice was, “What?”

Anton sighed, not in a “smug asshole” kind of way, either. “I guess neither Tilly nor Loralee told you,” he muttered.

Egan didn’t like that particular pairing. Tilly, the woman who wished he’d died instead of her son, and Loralee, the woman who wished him, well, probably all sorts of bad things.

“How bad is this?” Egan came out and asked.

Anton sighed again. “Bad.”

And his ex-wife’s lover filled him in.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

EGANWENTUPthe steps to Alana’s house, ready to knock, ready to tell her everything he’d just learned from his dad and Anton. But before he even made it to her porch, the front door opened.

She looked amazing, of course. That was the default for her. Her hair was down, spilling onto the shoulders of the pale green dress she was wearing. Even though he’d come with a starter of bad news, he couldn’t help but feel the punch of lust he got at just seeing her.

“You’ve heard,” she said almost right away.

So she already knew what he needed to tell her. Maybe. “You know about the interview Tilly did and Anton doing the painting?” he countered.

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