Betting on Hope

by Debra Clopton

  Other Books by Debra Clopton

  Her Unforgettable Cowboy

  Her Homecoming Cowboy

  Her Lone Star Cowboy

  Her Rodeo Cowboy

  Her Forever Cowboy

  His Cowgirl Bride

  The Trouble with Lacy Brown

  NOVELLAS BY DEBRA CLOPTON

  A Cowboy for Katie found in Four Weddings and a Kiss

  An Ever After Summer found in A Bride for All Seasons

  © 2015 by Debra Clopton

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.

  Thomas Nelson titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-1-4016-9050-2 (eBook)

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Clopton, Debra.

  Betting on hope / Debra Clopton.

  pages. cm. — (A four of hearts ranch romance ; 1)

  Summary: “A bet gone wrong. A small town’s meddling. And a cowboy intent on saving his ranch.Maggie Hope is an advice columnist whose background leaves her with little advice to give. and it’s beginning to show. When Maggie fills in at an interview with champion horse trainer Tru Monahan, the on-camera chemistry between them is undeniable. Maggie’s bosses know this is the opportunity she’s been looking for to launch her career . . . and their bank accounts. In order to save her column, Maggie takes Tru up on the bet . . . that he can teach her to ride a quick-stepping cutting horse like any cowgirl, despite the fact that she has never been on a horse. And in the meantime, she can get the scoop on the man under the cowboy hat. Tru has been on the competition circuit for longer than he’d like, but he knows it’s the only way he can afford to keep the Four of Hearts Ranch that means so much to his ailing grandfather. So when his sponsors see the opportunity for Tru’s fans to get to know the star on a more intimate level, he knows he must oblige. To his dismay, Maggie not only invades his small town of Wishing Springs, but she also invades his heart, and that is something he cannot let any woman do for her own good. In Wishing Springs, Maggie finds what she has always been looking for: a community and a home. But when her past catches up to her, it threatens everything, even the tender hope that this town holds all of her heart’s desires”-- Provided by publisher.

  ISBN 978-1-4016-9049-6 (pbk.)

  I. Title.

  PS3603.L67B48 2015

  813'.6—dc23

  2014032900

  14 15 16 17 18 19 RRD 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To my family: your love, your smiles, your hugs—that’s the “good stuff” and I’m so blessed and forever grateful to have each and all of you in my life. I thank God every day for each of you.

  Contents

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  Discussion Questions

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  1

  “What have you gotten me into, Amanda Jones?”

  Staring at the rough-looking building, Maggie Hope clutched her cell phone to her ear and fought down a hot flood of panic. “The sign says the Bull Barn. What is this place?” she gritted through tense jaws.

  Rustic was an understatement for the faded wooden building sitting on the outskirts of Wishing Springs, Texas. It had dark windows and a long plank porch supported by columns made of knobby tree trunks. The steeply pitched red roof sagged in the middle. It was a dive, a shack.

  “Calm down, Mags,” Amanda croaked, the flu causing her to sound like an eighty-year-old smoker, instead of the intimidatingly elegant, thirty-five-year-old bombshell who was the key ingredient of the most popular morning show on Houston’s local channel. She coughed. “It may look a little rough, but it’s the cowboy and local folks’ hangout.”

  “But—it’s deserted. Lonesome. If it’s a hangout, where is everyone?” It didn’t look like a place anyone would want to hang out in. Especially Maggie. Dives brought back memories she worked hard to forget.

  The TV station’s van was the only other vehicle in the white rock parking lot—and that only added to her distress, which in truth was more about the TV camera than the clapboard building that looked like a leftover of the Wild West days.

  She swallowed the lump in her throat. She wanted to go back home and write her daily advice column, “Gotta Have Hope,” in obscurity. But . . . not happening. Amanda was delirious to have offered Maggie as her stand-in for this important interview with champion Quarter Horse rider, trainer, and ladies’ man, Tru Monahan.

  Tru Monahan!

  Maggie was a writer, not a reporter. She wasn’t comfortable being in front of people—it brought back memories of the worst times of her life . . . not only a time of shame and embarrassment but also a time when her life fell apart. But none of that mattered to anyone but her, and since the same conglomerate owned both the newspaper and the television station, Maggie hadn’t been asked to do this. She’d been told.

  Amanda sneezed. “The show asked for the interview to be done when there was no one else around. Small-town interviews tend to be harder when locals are involved. It’s better for you this way.” Amanda’s hoarsely whispered words ended in another croaking cough.

  “Amanda, you sound terrible.” Sympathy won out over Maggie’s nervous breakdown.

  “I feel awful,” Amanda wheezed. “I’m going to sleep now. You let those red heels do the walking and get in there, girlfriend. You can do this.”

  “But—,” Maggie blurted, but the line had gone dead.

  Maggie’s hand tightened on the now useless lifeline to her friend.

  She glared into the rearview mirror and cringed at her overdone blue eyeshadow. Her cheeks were too pink, too, and her lips sticky with gloss. Amanda had assured Maggie that for the camera she needed a little more color than was normal.

  A camera.

  Clammy fingers of panic tightened around her windpipe. Maggie squeezed her eyes shut and counted to ten . . . calm did not come. It was a wonder she hadn’t broken out in hives or something on the two-hour-long drive over here.

  “Gotta Have Hope” was a dream come true for Maggie and it was because of Amanda’s recommendation that she even had the job. No one truly knew what a blessing the advice column had been for Maggie. A lifesaver, really. As Amanda had been to her when they’d first met several years earlier.

  She owed Amanda . . .

  Even so, Maggie figured this gig was going to be the full sum of her debt owed. Yup, paid in full was getting stamped on that bill. Amanda was always looking out for her, but she didn’t know about the fool Maggie had made
of herself in her freshman year during the school play. Freezing up, then knocking down the entire set in her panic . . .

  Everyone laughing . . .

  And then the aftermath—a chill filled Maggie. What if she made a fool of herself in front of thousands of TV viewers?

  “Stop,” Maggie huffed, glaring at herself in the mirror. She was not that insecure kid anymore. Not the kid whose home life was so messed up that she could barely hide it from everyone her seventh grade year. The kid who’d tried to lose herself through acting as an escape from reality only to fall apart that night on stage. The clumsy kid who left the stage in tears only to arrive home to find police hauling her father away.

  The night of that play, Maggie’s life changed from bad to worse.

  No, Maggie didn’t do limelight well. It brought back far too many bad memories that she was still trying hard to wipe away.

  Maggie closed her eyes and inhaled slowly. She’d found out the hard way that she wasn’t meant to be in the spotlight where there were things she couldn’t control.

  But none of that mattered because her bosses believed this would be good for her floundering advice column. They wanted her readers to see the person behind the column. Ha—they might discover that was a really bad idea when they saw her in front of that camera. She’d probably freeze up, throw up, or all of the above.

  Stop. Just stop.

  “Positive thinking here, Mags. You will do this and you will do this well.”

  Pulling from the well of determination that had gotten her out of that life and into the life she had now, Maggie opened the door of her baby blue Volkswagen Bug. Fear never got her anywhere.

  June heat slammed into her along with the scent of something tasty roasting inside the awful building. Okay, so at least that was a positive sign. She reached across the seat and grabbed the red high heels—bought specifically for this interview. Amanda swore they’d give her courage and confidence. Carefully, she set them on the chunky, white rocks of the parking lot and then slipped her feet into them.

  She might be a lot of things, but chicken wasn’t one of them. Sure, she’d once been afraid but she’d learned to push through her fear. And that was exactly what she was going to do now.

  She reached for her red leather folder—something else Amanda said worked for courage—slung her large purse over her shoulder and stood in a decisive movement of decision to give this her all. Her hand trembled as she smoothed her flowing skirt, but she ignored it, then slammed her car door and took a step toward the Bull Barn.

  The rumble of a large engine had her glancing over her shoulder. A shiny, black four-wheel-drive truck whipped into the parking lot the same instant a whirlwind swept across the dusty ground. Maggie’s skirt had been swishing gently about her knees, now it caught air and attempted to do the Marilyn-Monroe-thing and fly up over her head. Maggie let go of her folder and desperately grabbed for the dancing skirt.

  She managed to clamp it down just in time but dropped her folder.

  “No,” she gasped as it hit the ground and the papers with Amanda’s prewritten interview questions instantly swirled up into the whirlwind like birds freed from a cage. Fumbling to gather her skirt hem in one hand, she grasped at flying pages with the other. The white gravel Texans were partial to did not get along well with her heels. She knew she was making a ridiculous spectacle of herself wobbling and tottering as she watched her interview fly into oblivion.

  She couldn’t do the interview without Amanda’s questions.

  Her long blonde hair swept across her eyes just as a man’s wide, tanned hand reached over her shoulder and plucked a page fluttering in front of her from the air.

  “Got it,” said a deep voice as its owner stepped past her and continued to snatch pages from the air one at a time with quick, coordinated movements.

  Relief surged through Maggie as she watched the long-legged cowboy swoop the last one off the ground and turn toward her. The championship-size buckle at his hips gleamed in the sunlight in competition with the white smile slashing across his face.

  Oh my.

  Maggie’s stomach nosedived straight to her toes.

  Photos had failed to do Tru Monahan justice.

  Beneath his black Stetson, the chocolate dark hair brushing his collar was richer looking, his jaw stronger, and his high cheekbones more prominent than they’d seemed on television or in the tabloids. And his eyes . . . Maggie’s breath caught when her eyes collided with his. Warm, deep, rich amber reminding her of maple syrup held up to the light. They were simply incredible—he was incredible.

  Her ankles melted and she wobbled again when his lips shifted from the dazzling smile into the signature half grin that caused the skin around his eyes to crinkle enticingly. That expression enhanced a bunch of commercials and even appeared on a variety of equine products he endorsed.

  That grin had won Tru Monahan a horde of female admirers across the country.

  And Maggie was not immune. Her pulse went ballistic in response to all that dazzlement and the ground shifted—okay, so maybe that was her imagination, but she felt it nonetheless.

  “I’ll carry these for you,” he said, tucking the folder beneath his arm, his expression relaxing as he focused his full attention on her. Which was a little overwhelming.

  The wind fought her skirt, and her hair tickled her nose as Maggie swallowed the lump firmly situated in her windpipe. “Thank you,” she croaked—she actually croaked—Oh, just shoot me now and be done with it. “I’m in a bit of a bind at the moment.” Sometimes the truth was the only way to go.

  His gaze drifted to her ironclad grip on her runaway skirt, which was still fighting for freedom.

  “It would be my pleasure,” he drawled, his grin twitching. “Can I help you?”

  Maggie just stared at him like she’d never seen a good-looking man before.

  Her hair slapped her in the face—a much-needed wake-up call.

  “N-no. I’m fine. Just fine,” she gathered her skirt closer and smiled stiffly while sweeping her hair out of her face with her free hand. Forcing her shoulders back, she took a couple of steps toward the restaurant, teetering dangerously on her heels once more.

  Tru walked slowly beside her, his black boots crunching the rocks that were in cahoots with her shoes to do her in. After a few treacherous steps, he touched her arm. “I don’t want to get in your business, but I’m thinking maybe you should hold on to my arm before you go flying across this rock and skin’n up those pretty knees of yours.”

  Maggie halted, staring at him. His Texas drawl did funny things to her insides. Okay, so maybe she shouldn’t have told Amanda that she thought Tru was the best-looking male on the planet, when her friend had first mentioned interviewing the cowboy. She’d made that statement back when Amanda was supposed to be doing the interview.

  Maybe if she’d kept her mouth shut, Amanda might not have suggested Maggie substitute for her.

  Tru crooked his arm in invitation and the warmth of his gaze radiated through her.

  “I’d say no,” she said, her voice annoyingly breathless. “But then I’d probably fall flat on my face, so thank you.” She slipped her arm through his and wrapped her fingers around the corded muscle of his forearm.

  She felt really ridiculous clinging to her interviewee as they headed toward the porch. The man smelled like leather and sunshine and something spicy that drew her like a hummingbird to sugar water. She had to fight the urge to lean in and inhale.

  When they made it to the steps, she was thrilled. “Thank you for rescuing me. I was courting disaster out there.” And now too.

  “Always glad to help a lady in distress.”

  “If you’re around me too long, you’ll risk getting overworked.”

  His eyes twinkled. “I definitely might have more than I can handle where you’re concerned.”

  She stumbled on the step—the cowboy was flirting with her.

  Worse—Maggie choked on a gasp—he thought she was flirtin
g with him.

  “P-probably not,” she assured him, stepping quickly away from him, happy to have the smooth wood porch beneath her feet and space between them. “I’m fairly boring on most days, quartz gravel and heels aside.”

  He grinned at her words and monster-size butterflies did loops behind her rib cage.

  “I have a feeling that’s not true.” He held out the folder with the pages he’d stuck back inside. “These are yours, I believe.”

  “Thank you, again.” Maggie’s fingers grazed his as she took the folder and sparks tingled up her arm. Her cheeks burned. No doubt about it, she was the most unprofessional interviewer the Houston Tribune could ever have chosen for this assignment.

  He pushed open the heavy door by the glass panes in the upper half. Fighting conflicting emotions, she brushed past him—being sure not to touch him. The delicious coffee-scented, cool air from the inside swept over her, soothing her heated skin.

  Coffee—that’s what she needed. A strong cup of courage.

  Safely inside, she finally dared to let go of her skirt and it swayed gently just above her knees as she glanced around. She was relieved, for a moment at least, to have something other than Tru to focus on. The film crew was set up off to the side of the diner, busy checking equipment while waiting for Amanda to come in and take charge. Only Amanda wasn’t here, and Maggie had absolutely no idea what to do. Hopefully someone else would be able to show her the way.

  Tru moved to stand beside her. “Looks kind of vacant. Are you here for lunch? I think they’re holding off opening ’til after that.” He jerked his head slightly in the direction of the cameras, but said nothing about them interviewing him.