Loving That Cowboy

by Victoria Chatham

  Samantha caught up with her outside the grandstand and hauled her to a stop. “Why are you running away?”

  “There’s nothing for me here,” Trisha stuttered. “Those idiots have been batting me between the two of them since the day I arrived.”

  “You don’t know that for sure,” Samantha argued.

  “No? I’ve heard about twins dating each other’s partners just for the hell of it or to help each other out.” Trisha wrenched her wallet out of her bag and dug for change for her train ticket but dropped the coins.

  She threw her hands wide in exasperation but Samantha had already saved her the trouble of retrieving them by producing two train tickets. She waved them under Trisha’s nose.

  “You need to calm down and look at this logically,” she advised as they headed to the station.

  “Logic?” Trisha was beyond herself. “Where’s the logic in any of this, I’d like to know?”

  By the time the train pulled into the platform Trisha had sunk into silence and Samantha gave up trying to get through to her. When they reached the condo Trisha went straight to her room where she cleared her belongings from the closet and bathroom and packed her bags. She ignored Samantha’s pleadings for her to stay.

  What was there to stay for? It didn’t matter how much she thought she loved Cameron. That he could fool her by swapping roles with his twin brother told her everything she needed to know and that had nothing to do with love.

  Samantha drove her to the airport, still insisting that Trisha should stay and at least give Cameron the benefit of the doubt.

  “I wouldn’t know what to say to him and I don’t know if I could believe him,” Trisha admitted. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I think I’ve been fooled enough, thank you.”

  Trisha insisted that Samantha just drop her off at the terminal and not wait with her until her flight departed. She just wanted to be on her own, to sink into her own thoughts and try and sort them out.

  “I should say thanks for everything,” she said as they loaded a baggage cart, “even bullying me into that interview, but right now I can’t even think straight.”

  “What do you want me to do if Cameron contacts me?” Samantha asked, determined not to let Trisha go without trying again to make her reconsider.

  “You don’t know me,” Trisha said wearily. “You don’t know where I live, you don’t have any contact numbers for me, for all you know I don’t even exist.”

  “You don’t mean that,” Samantha said. “You’ll feel differently in a few days.”

  Trisha hugged her again. “Maybe.”

  She turned then and with a straight back and dry eyes entered the concourse. For thirteen days she hadn’t known from one day to the next what she would have to deal with, whether it was how she felt about Cameron or what she feared most from Brent Heywood. She’d survived Samantha’s plans and finally come face-to-face with the nightmare of her accident.

  All she wanted now was to go home.

  Chapter Twenty One

  “So for how much longer are you going to sulk?”

  Cameron shot his brother a warning glare but Mackenzie, lounging comfortably against the wall, ignored him.

  “She made her choice,” Cameron muttered as he forked fresh wood shavings across the stable floor.

  “I doubt it was a good one for either of you.”

  Cameron’s jaw tightened. It didn’t help that he’d had to tell Mack everything about Trisha in order to explain his foul mood after winning the most prestigious event of his career. He hadn’t been able to find her on that last day of Stampede or, as yet, had the time to connect with Samantha Monroe to get an address or telephone number from her. There’d been far too much to do in preparation for his upcoming training clinic. At least, that was his rationalization to cover the fear that Trisha really didn’t want to see him or hear from him again. That fear crept into his consciousness too many times during the day and haunted his sleep at night.

  “What would you know about making good choices?” Cameron growled.

  “A helluva lot more than you it seems.”

  “Name one.” Cameron whirled around to stare his brother down.

  “Leaving you to stew after Ma and Pa died,” Mack said quietly.

  Cameron’s hands curled into fists and bile rose in his throat as his brother so blatantly voiced the core of the problem between them.

  “Go on,” Mack goaded. “Hit me if you think you’ll feel better.”

  They hadn’t had a fist fight since their father had caught them slugging it out behind the barn when they were thirteen. Instead of stopping them, he’d hauled them back to the house and insisted they carry on the fight in front of their mother. Under her unwavering glare they had thrown a few more punches at each other before letting their hands drop to their sides, the argument that set them off forgotten.

  With supreme effort Cameron uncurled his fists and flexed his fingers, knowing that Mackenzie remembered that day too. He swallowed hard. “We both know that won’t solve anything but, since you brought it up, why did you leave?”

  Mack didn’t give an immediate answer but went to the entrance of the barn and looked outside. “Would you have all of this if we’d stayed at the home place?”

  “That’s not the point,” Cameron began as he joined his brother in the doorway.

  “That’s exactly the point.” Mack huffed out a breath of frustration. “We were too young to be saddled with a load of debt that we didn’t make. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Ma and Pa, but do you remember what a tough bastard he could be if we didn’t get placed high enough for his liking when we competed?”

  “He wanted the best for us.” Cameron’s jaw tightened stubbornly in defense of his father.

  “No, that wasn’t it at all.” Mack shook his head. “He wanted us to be the best for him, because he never made it. If he hadn’t have busted his leg so bad just after we were born, how much do you think we’d have seen of him? He’d never have settled down or we’d have been hauled all over hell’s half acre to suit him. How fair would that have been on Ma, or us for that matter?”

  “She’d have gone anywhere with Pa,” Cameron insisted. “She loved him.”

  “Sure she did,” Mack agreed. “But that didn’t mean she liked him a lot of the time.”

  Cameron frowned, suddenly unsettled that Mack might have had some insights into their parents that he’d missed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Mack hooked his thumbs into his belt loops and looked miserable. “I didn’t come here to hash up old hurts, but do you remember when Pa bought you that sorrel gelding?”

  “Yeah, sure I do. We were just about to turn sixteen. What of it?”

  “Ma was furious with him. That was your birthday present, not mine. In fact,” Mack drew in a breath, “think about all the times you got something and I didn’t.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” Cameron glared at his brother, but Mack had hit a nerve as surely as hitting a nail squarely on the head. “Anything Pa bought was for us to share.”

  Mack shook his head. “No, bro. It was all to help make you the big rodeo name he never was. We rubbed along because we steer wrestled which took the two of us. If you’d have wanted to ride broncs like Pa, and I’d been keen on the bulls, how would he have coped with coaching and providing for the two of us? Pa thought you had more potential than I did which was why he spent more time with you. Ma knew it and didn’t like that about him. I heard them arguing over us more than once.”

  “And you never thought to tell me?” Hurt, laced with a measure of guilt, curled through Cameron’s stomach.

  “You wouldn’t have believed me,” Mack said and Cameron knew he was right. “You would have believed me even less if I’d tried to explain all that to you after the funeral. We were both hurting too much but for different reasons. But look what it did for us. You’ve got this place, I’ve got my house in town and a few other things here and there and neither of u
s have any debt. What we do have, we both own outright and the bank can’t take it away from us. So do I know about making good choices?” The look in Mack’s eyes dared Cameron to disagree with him. “Yeah, bro. I think I do.”

  For a moment neither of them spoke. Cameron tipped his hat forward and rubbed the back of his neck. He couldn’t deny the truth of what Mack said. He’d been blind to it when they’d been boys, but during the time he’d dealt with the ranch dispersal, the accountant, taxman and the bank, he’d cursed his father more than once.

  It hurt more than he could have imagined as the horses were sold off, one by one or a bunch of them, mostly to surrounding ranches. Same with the small herd of cattle they ran. Auction day had seen off the house contents and the heavy ranch equipment. Mack had kept nothing, while he’d salvaged his favorite saddle and a few mementos of their parents. When all the debts had been cleared and the taxes paid, they’d been lucky enough to have a small inheritance to share.

  “Guess I have to agree with you,” Cameron conceded. “And thanks for turning up for my final go-round. That was another good choice.”

  Mack chuckled. “You’re welcome, but speaking of good choices, I made another one. Want to hear it?”

  “Hit me.”

  “I’ve chosen you to be my best man.”

  Cameron felt his jaw drop and he stared in disbelief at his brother.

  “I know.” Mack threw out his hands in an expression of helplessness and reddened under Cameron’s withering stare. “Last thing I thought would happen too, but our paths kept crossing and before I knew it I didn’t want to be without her. Lucky for me she feels the same way. What do you say?”

  Cameron didn’t immediately have anything to say as he tried to unscramble his brains to accommodate the concept of his younger brother getting married. Along with that fact he heard again Trisha’s accusations, asking him where he’d been and with whom and something in his mind clicked.

  “Your bride-to-be wouldn’t happen to have long blonde hair and wear pink boots, would she?”

  “Wh-o-oa.” Mack backed away from him and crossed his forefingers in the familiar sign of protection from evil. “Twins are supposed to be psychic but that’s scary accurate, dude.”

  Suddenly suspicious, Cameron peered at his brother through narrowed eyes. “When exactly did you get into town?”

  “Tuesday before Stampede started,” Mack threw out casually.

  “So where did you stay?” The suspicion in Cameron’s mind grew stronger.

  “Tova shares a house in Mission. Made more sense to go there than have her haul her stuff to my place. Why?”

  Cameron slowly shook his head. “Un-freaking-believable.”

  Now Trisha’s comments and the times she’d seemed mad at him made sense. She hadn’t seen him, she’d seen Mackenzie and what was worse, he knew it.

  “Before you explode,” Mackenzie said, putting a hand on Cameron’s chest and holding him at arm’s length, “just let me say this in my own defense. Hiding in plain sight seemed to make the most sense. I’ve been gone long enough that most folks would almost forget you had a brother. I didn’t want to see you until your final event because I didn’t want any arguments about hazing for you. But Tova insisted I talk to you, so I came out to the ranch to see you.”

  “When?”

  “Friday evening, but you weren’t home so I waited a bit and then Trisha turned up. I’d seen her on the plane when I flew in, and then on the grounds, but didn’t know until she pulled into the yard that you two were an item. Man, she had some ruffled feathers about some dude called Brent something or other.”

  “Heywood,” Cameron muttered between clenched teeth.

  “Yep, that was the name.” Mack nodded his head in recognition. “Didn’t understand half of what she was on about but as far as I could tell, if she didn’t fix it for him to win some competition, he threatened to hurt Anchorman. That really upset her for some reason.”

  “You’d have to know her to understand that.” Cameron scrubbed his hand over his face. “You’re only just telling me this now?”

  “I took care of it so I didn’t see a reason to.” Mack slid his hands into his pockets and shrugged.

  “Took care of it how?” Cameron knew how his brother tended to take care of things. He squinted down the driveway to make sure there were no police cars driving up it to take Mack away.

  “Being in the military had its uses. I learnt a thing or two about surveillance and still have friends in town to call on for back up. Both you and your horse had eyes on you since about, oh, seven-ten on Friday evening, Larry being in charge of the horse watch.”A wicked chuckle bubbled out of Mack’s throat. “And Brent Heywood got a one way ticket up north with Wade Polanski.”

  “Sheee-it.” Cameron grabbed his hat off his head and slapped it across his thigh. “Guess you had my back in more ways than one so now I owe you all over again.”

  “And here’s something else you owe me for.” Mack drew a piece of paper out of his jeans pocket and handed it over.

  Cameron unfolded it and looked blank until he realized what he was reading. “Trisha’s home address? Where’d you get this?”

  “Tackled the dragon lady in her den while you were dragging your heels.” Mack rolled his eyes. “I must really love you, bro, because that one really is a piece of work. So when are you going to see your lady?”

  “I can’t leave now until after the clinic.”

  “Bullshit you can’t,” Mack roared in exasperation at his brother. “I’ll teach the goddam clinic for you.”

  “You couldn’t teach a frog to croak.”

  Instantly they were face to face and toe to toe with fists raised, glaring at each other in fury. Long seconds ticked by, each waiting for the other to land the first blow. Then Mack began to chuckle. Cameron dropped his fists and joined him. In moments they were both consumed with laughter, great gusts of it bellowing out from deep in their chests.

  “Guess we’re not thirteen anymore,” Cameron wheezed as he caught his breath and his brother at the same time.

  “Either that or we’re the biggest damn thirteen-year olds that every walked the planet,” Mack gasped, hugging his brother back. He wiped tears of relief laden laughter from his eyes. “Whew, that took me back.”

  Cameron slapped his brother’s back. “Didn’t it just? But I guess we both learned our lesson.”

  “Yeah, there are some things we have to thank Pa for.” Mack straightened his Stetson. “Now big bro, tell me about this clinic of yours. How many people are coming? Is it basic horsemanship? Any problem horses to sort out? What do I need to know?”

  With so many questions being fired at him Cameron almost forgot the paper Mack had handed him. When he looked at it again he reached for his phone, but hesitated. Trisha hadn’t answered any of his calls while she’d been here so why think she’d answer him now?

  He thought of the check he’d won at the Stampede, the quarter horse stud he’d purchased and arranged transport for over the phone. He looked with quiet pride at the home he’d built and with even more pride at his brother who had, when it mattered, been there for him. He had everything he wanted, but he didn’t have the one thing he needed. Trisha.

  He reached for the phone again and called the airline.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Relieved to be in her own room and in her own bed again, after four days Trisha still could not sleep. Her body hadn’t yet caught up with the time change between Calgary and England, but more than that she knew Samantha had been right. She’d run away without facing up to whichever of the twins was Cameron. Added to that, Samantha had sent her a one word text.

  Coward.

  At first furious with her, Trisha finally admitted it when they spoke on the phone two days after she’d arrived home. Samantha had a lot to say and later that day Trisha had taken another call, a call that had given her much to think about.

  Giving up on any thoughts of sleep now, she rolled out of bed and
went to stand by her open window. She loved her hilltop home and never tired of the view out over the stable yard and riding arenas to the beech woods beyond. At this early hour a veil of light mist hung in the valley below her. It would soon burn off once the sun rose. Somewhere a cock crowed and she heard the rattle of buckets as the grooms started work in the yard.

  Suddenly needing the activity she pulled on riding pants and a light sweatshirt, ran a brush through her hair and pulled it into a pony-tail. She ran down the stairs, out the back door and made her way to the feed room where her mother, always an early riser, handed her two pails.

  “Seeing as you’re up and about,” she said with a smile, “would you take these to my boys?”

  Trisha nodded and took the feed to the stallions, Croft Court and Winter Magic. Then she made her way around the rest of the horses, stroking noses and patting necks. It still amazed her how thirteen days in Calgary had made her realize how much she missed this routine. She stopped to lean on the paddock fence and watched several mares and foals grazing there. A dark bay foal came to inspect her, nudging her elbow which reminded her of the photo she had taken of Rosie and Sweetpea with Cameron.

  She sighed and pressed her thumb between her eyebrows to relieve the tension that thinking of him produced. She owed him an apology and hadn’t yet decided how best to do that. She didn’t think he’d take her call if she phoned him. She might give him the wrong impression if she went back and delivered it in person. Yet she knew, for peace of mind and to ease her heart, she had to do something and soon.

  Before she had come to any conclusions, her father strolled out to join her. He threw an arm around her shoulders.

  “So Patti?”

  “So Dad?”

  He chuckled. “I’ve been watching the wheels spin round in your head and you’re getting nowhere. At one time riding a horse helped you solve your problems.”