Betting on Hope

by Debra Clopton

  Tru scowled. “Would you cut it out?”

  Bo laughed. “What is wrong with kissing a beautiful woman? And since when did you ever have a problem with that?” Bo suddenly stopped smiling. “You really have feelings for her.” It wasn’t a question.

  Tru stared at his brother as the truth hit him hard—since he’d met Maggie he’d realized that he could very easily lose his heart to her. And knowing that meant there was no way he was doing anything right now to mess up her life. Him being in her life right now wouldn’t be a good thing. It was the math, and she knew it.

  On Sunday night Maggie stared at her computer trying to concentrate on her job. The letter jumping out at her tonight was from a woman who had just broken up with her boyfriend—who had repeatedly dropped her—and now after finally walking away from the guy, the letter writer wasn’t sure if she could live without him. She was asking Maggie if she should try and get him back. It was signed Second Thoughts and Confused.

  “Isn’t that a fine kettle of fish? Confused—excuse me!” Maggie frowned at the computer. It wasn’t fine at all. What was it with women who thought that their happiness depended on some guy who could treat them badly then just drop them whenever the moment struck? Where was the hope in that? It was an endless loop that didn’t favor the female at all.

  Maggie stood and walked to the window of the cabin. Men. She didn’t understand them. At all.

  She’d spent most of her life avoiding relationships with them, and yet she gave advice—and hope—on the subject.

  The disturbing idea that she was a fraud rattled through her. A fraud.

  And someone out there knew it.

  She pushed the thought away. The person who’d written that threatening letter had given her nothing to go on. All she could do was wait and see when the next letter showed up. What did they want?

  The weight on her shoulders felt too heavy to bear. Maggie felt weary suddenly. Rubbing her temple, she closed her eyes and knew right now she couldn’t answer Second Thoughts’s letter. She didn’t really know anything about what she was trying to give hope to women about. Nothing. And yesterday with Tru proved it unequivocally.

  What was she supposed to really tell that woman? Could she give that poor woman hope when she didn’t know what to do with her own life?

  Like what was she supposed to do about Tru?

  Stay away from him, that’s what.

  That wasn’t an option though. That kiss had happened over twenty-four hours ago and she could still feel it.

  How could something that had sent her heart soaring have been a mistake?

  She’d seen him at church and he’d been careful not to be on the same side of the church with her. And he’d left early. Obviously it remained a big mistake to him.

  It was truly aggravating, but why hadn’t she expected him to act that way? He hadn’t spoken the whole ride home after the kiss, so why did she expect more today?

  Nope, the man had led the way out of the ravine and straight to the stable with her trailing him.

  But once there, she’d dismounted before he had—this time without incident—and led Stardust to her stall. They’d each taken the saddles off their horses and brushed them down, and that done, she’d left the stable and not looked back. He had tried to say something, but she’d told him to save his breath. That he’d been right—the kiss should never have happened.

  The tension had been unbelievably thick.

  The lonesome cry of the pack of coyotes echoed outside the window. On first arrival she would have been frightened by the sound. Tonight she empathized with the soul-wrenching sound. She still didn’t like it though.

  It was time to try to go to bed. She double checked that the doors were all locked—as if the coyotes were going to come and open the doors with their teeth. Feeling ridiculously low, she went to her bedroom hoping sleep would help her see things in a better light tomorrow.

  Wearing her oversize pajama bottoms and her pink tank top, she crawled into bed and cuddled up with her pillow. At the rate she was going, it was probably all she’d ever have to cuddle up with.

  Oh, how she wished she was back home in Houston working in her cozy apartment where the wildest animal noises were the occasional bark from her neighbor’s Toy Poodle. Where she didn’t get bit by oversize Basset Hounds. Where she went to see regular doctors and not vets. Where her face wasn’t plastered across the morning show, making it possible for her past to creep up and kick her in the back.

  And where the men, well, they kept their distance. That was a whole lot more appealing than a man who kissed her till her head spun and her heart turned over. Only to have him declare what a mistake it was.

  Hope. What did she know about hope? Other than it was a name she’d applied for to cover up her bad history.

  16

  Maggie would not be mortified, or even the least bit embarrassed. She got out of her car the next morning and pulled her shoulders back while giving herself the pep talk. What was behind was behind and today was a new day.

  She stalked into the barn with her head held high. She was here for the riding.

  Actually, she was here to keep her job.

  And Tru was here to teach her to ride.

  There would be no more kissing. Not that he would want to, but she didn’t want to either. She was no wimpy little woman to be toyed with. She gave good, strong advice that helped other women who were feeling both wimpy and walked over. She had plenty of letters from women who told her how much her column helped them.

  Yes, it had taken her a long, sleepless night to pull on her big girl pants and stop feeling sorry for herself, but she had done it. No more kissing. It just messed up a girl’s head. Blocked her good sense and wreaked havoc on an otherwise workable plan.

  Whether he won or she won the bet wasn’t really the issue. The issue was that she keep her job.

  That she keep “Gotta Have Hope” alive. And that meant she had to keep her readership happy and interested. And she had to figure out who sent the letter. Could it have been Shane? Later, after her lesson, she was going to make some phone calls. It was time to find out if certain people had gotten out of prison.

  Today, she planned to make it clear to Tru that this was strictly a business deal for both of them and that there would be no more kissing.

  It was the only way to get the elephant out of the barn.

  He wasn’t in the barn waiting on her like usual. She stalked to the end of the run where all the different round pens were. And there he was in the larger of the two riding. Her heart stumbled seeing him and that made her all the more determined to hold to her guns. She wasn’t a wimp. She’d told that girl in the letter last night to hold to her course, that she could live without that wishy-washy guy, and to not think she couldn’t. It had been her most decisive letter to date. And that meant Maggie couldn’t wimp out either.

  She watched as he and the horse moved in unison. The horse’s front feet planted hard to the left then moved swiftly to the right and then back again in a fast back and forth dance that churned up the dirt. This was cutting at its best and though he made it look easy she knew staying in the saddle during this rigorous change-up took talent.

  He and the horse were one. He was mesmerizing.

  Maggie gave herself a mental kick in the shins and gritted her teeth. This was a business deal.

  This was a business deal.

  Easier said than done when, as she watched him, the kiss that had shaken her world came back in vivid color.

  When he looked her way and pulled up the horse, whose name she didn’t know, her heart began pumping—it was really, really aggravating. How was she supposed to stay in control of her life if she couldn’t control the way he seemed to lure her in?

  “Good morning,” he said, riding over to the fence in front of Maggie.

  “Good morning. You look good out there.” Okay, not the thing to say, but at least she’d said something. “You and the horse, I mean,” she added quickly.<
br />
  “Thanks. Hazy Rey’s the best. I just have a few more paces to take him through and then we’ll get started. I’ve already saddled Stardust for you. You can take him into the small pen and just start riding circles, warming him up till I get there.”

  “Sure. Sounds good.” So he was all business too.

  Great.

  No problem.

  Fine with her.

  Tension strained between them for the entirety of the lesson, but there was nothing Tru could do about it. Spin back time and take the kiss back? He was hard out of luck on that front. Though, selfish as it was, he didn’t want to take it back.

  Tru worked with Maggie on stops and turns with Stardust, and her hand positions and control.

  She was different today, in that there was a concentration that hadn’t been there before—a determined glint in her eye and a tension in her pretty jaw as she worked tirelessly to get everything he told her right.

  They didn’t talk about the day of the kiss. They didn’t talk about the kiss. It was as if it had never happened . . . that is, if you ignored the strain between them and the fact that they both worked extremely hard to not have contact. And they spoke only about the instructions.

  “When she gets down low in the dirt and cuts back and forth to keep the calf separated, am I supposed to lean forward?”

  “You’ll learn to move with your horse. You’ll flow with her and that’s part of it.”

  “Okay.” She concentrated on backing Stardust up and holding her reins up like he’d taught her.

  “You’re really giving it your all today,” he said when the lesson was almost over.

  She stared over at him, her expression blank. “I’ve decided that the best way to get and keep the interest of my readers is for you to win this bet. That means I’ve got to be able to do this, and in order to help my readers know that there’s always hope, I need to do this well.”

  Yeah, of course, it was about getting and retaining her readership.

  His phone started ringing as they were leading their horses back into the barn. He saw that it was the doctor’s office.

  “You know the routine,” he told Maggie. “I need to take this call.”

  Walking back out into the arena he pressed accept and was surprised to find Dr. Jenson on the other end of the line instead of the nurse.

  He was a no-beating-around-the-bush kind of doctor and Tru respected that, though the blow was hard when it came within moments of his greeting.

  Tru was sterile.

  “You’re sure?” It was a reflex question. This was not something the doc would tell him if he weren’t sure.

  “Chemo in childhood can have the effect of making a man infertile, though not always. So I’d hoped . . .” The doctor’s normally brisk tone softened. “I’m sorry, Tru.”

  “Me too.” Tru’s shoulders sagged and he hung his elbows over the round pen rails and stared out into the pasture, seeing nothing after he’d hung up. He’d been cancer-free for over twenty years. I’m a strong, healthy twenty-nine-year-old male.

  He seldom even had to sneeze.

  Sterile . . .

  The cold word reverberated through him like a gunshot. Every muscle in his body clenched. His head throbbed, and his throat felt like he’d just poured scalding water down it.

  He couldn’t father children.

  When he’d been six, it had been a three-year battle. He could still remember how sick he’d been. He could still remember the pain his illness had caused his mother and the way she’d rallied around him. His whole family had, though his mother was the most vivid in his memory.

  Tru hung his head and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He didn’t move further, just stood there feeling the sun on his face, but he was as cold as ice on the inside.

  He couldn’t father a child.

  He wouldn’t be able to give the woman he fell in love with children.

  Not even one . . . it was a knife through his heart.

  How was a man supposed to deal with that?

  17

  “Maggie, come on, sister. I know you are holding back. I can hear it in your voice. What is going on out there with that cowboy?”

  Maggie frowned into the phone. Amanda was being Amanda, the persistent interviewer who always got her story. Not that this was on the record. This was a conversation between friends, and Maggie knew it. Still, she was struggling with what to say.

  Over the last few days she and Tru had worked hard together on her riding skills. They didn’t talk about kissing. They didn’t talk about much at all. Other than him giving her instructions and her following through with them. But there was tension as strong as heated steel bands between them. They weren’t touching . . . but they were.

  And then there was yesterday at the end of the lesson—after he’d taken a call, he’d seemed almost solemn when he’d returned. And hard.

  He had told her she’d done well, to cool Stardust down, and that he’d see her at the next lesson. And then he’d gotten in his truck and left. At the lesson last night and this morning he’d been distant like before the call, but something was different. She didn’t know what, but she sensed it.

  And then there was Maggie’s fear each time she opened letters, either email or handwritten, that she was going to have another letter from her past. She didn’t mention that. Not yet.

  “Okay, Amanda, I’m telling you this, but it goes nowhere else. No. Where.”

  “Ooh, sounds fun. You know my lips are sealed. The PTB’s don’t have to know everything—as long as you give them something.”

  Maggie nodded to the phone. She really did need to talk to someone, and her best friend was the only one she would even dare to talk to about it. She raked a hand through her hair. “The man is driving me crazy, Manda. And I mean crazy with a capital C.”

  “Now, we’re really talking interesting. I mean the man is gorgeous. That alone would drive most people crazy. And that’s one reason this deal works in the first place. So what’s he doing? Any kissing going on?”

  Maggie held her breath trying to figure out how to answer that question. “Yes.” It came out as a squeak.

  Total silence greeted her on the other end of the line. After a few beats, “Seriously? Wow.”

  That was so not like her friend to be speechless. “Yes. He kissed me.” And it was amazing.

  “And what do you think about that, Maggie? I was teasing you, but I knew by the sound of your voice that something had happened. Was it amazing?”

  Maggie sighed, remembering though she was trying so hard to forget it. “It was. So amazing. But Manda, you and I know he’s not what I want.”

  “How can you not want him? Look, my friend, don’t judge him without really knowing him. The challenge just started. You may deny it all you want, but there was something that passed between the two of you in that interview. The camera came alive when he touched you. Maybe he is the playboy the tabloids have portrayed, but my gut tells me that he’s a really nice guy. And you’re a really nice girl who deserves a really nice guy so much.”

  Maggie’s stomach trembled.

  “But it’s barely been two weeks and already he kissed me. That supports the playboy—”

  “It could also mean that there is something incredible between you two that is undeniable.”

  Maggie propped her elbow on the table, dropped her head to her hand, and gripped the phone to her ear with the other. “I’m so miffed about the whole kissing incident. But at the same time I’m flip-flopping back and forth on my emotions when he’s around. But . . . I can’t make a mistake. I can’t.”

  “Oh, Maggie, you can’t always gauge your life by your past.”

  She took a deep breath. “Look, Manda, I can’t think about this right now. I need to finish my column.”

  They talked for a few more minutes before saying good-bye. Maggie was relieved to hang up the phone. She was struggling with angles to take with the column that would sustain the new interest that was being gene
rated by the TV promo spots advertising her column and the special with Tru Monahan.

  After a pot of coffee and a lot of pacing the floor and with the deadline quickly approaching, Maggie finally plopped her rear into the chair and wrote.

  Sometimes free writing was what it took to get the juices flowing. In the end, what appeared on the page was a piece about the gorgeous day of riding that she and Tru had shared. She focused on how she’d not trusted her abilities to ride Stardust down that incline, the fear that gripped her, and how Tru encouraged her to go for it. She omitted his scowl and the fact that he’d ridden off—that still baffled her, but after the kiss, she wasn’t about to ask him why he’d done it. She’d written instead about how he told her to trust Stardust, not herself. She finished the article with the positive twist about being able to let go of her fear and ride down that incline and the sense of accomplishment that she’d felt. It was a good article.

  She ended the piece with a few thoughts about how this experience was stretching her as a person. Sometimes it was trying her patience, but it was also making her reach deep. And that, she told her readers, was a good thing. It was something everyone should try.

  As she hit send and watched the article wing its way to her editor, Maggie began to feel the grit of weariness in her eyes. Crawling into bed, she knew that all she needed to do now was believe her own words . . . and hope no more letters came that threatened to destroy everything she’d worked so hard for.

  The doc’s call had knocked the legs from beneath Tru.

  Add to that the feelings he’d begun to have for Maggie—that had only been complicated by his boneheaded move the day he’d kissed her.

  She’d withdrawn from him after that and he’d stepped back too. They had enough issues in the pot without tossing in the attraction that linked them like a rope around their necks.

  He’d really overstepped his sanity on this one. And to top it off, Maggie had no use for a man with the ridiculous dating baggage he dragged behind him like a ball on a chain. And he didn’t blame her.