by Evie Nichole
“She’s Joe Hernandez’s granddaughter,” Aria offered. There. It was true. And it would hopefully shut Lance up.
But it didn’t. “I heard her horse is stolen,” Lance informed Aria. “They say it came off the Flying W but didn’t have an inspection or a brand change, if you know what I mean.”
Aria turned angrily to Lance just as the judge asked for the contestants to start trotting. “You know what, I’m really tired of hearing that.” Aria stabbed her finger toward the ring, indicating Smokey. “That mare is wearing a Hernandez brand. She’s in their studbook, and she’s one of Okie’s offspring. That stallion has been a Hernandez ranch stallion for over fifteen years. Just because Weatherby couldn’t breed a decent horse to save his life doesn’t make him right.”
Lance drew back in surprise. “Sheesh! Didn’t realize that was such a big deal to you.”
“Really?” Aria shot him a dirty look. “Isn’t that why you told me? I know you. You’re stirring the pot, Lance. But you better be careful. Weatherby is going to get you burned.”
Aria turned her attention back to Bella and gave her young charge a thumbs-up. Smokey and Aria were moving around the ring with absolute confidence as though they had been doing this all their lives. The smile on Bella’s face was pretty much the equal of the one Aria felt stretching across her own, and it also looked like the one on Laredo’s face up in the stands.
Aria found his gaze in the crowd. The swell of love in her chest for this man made her so ecstatic that she couldn’t hold it in. Putting her hand on her chest, she mouthed the words I love you to him. She could see from his expression that he was sending that sentiment right back to her. Sometimes life was just good and there was no two ways about it.
LAREDO FELT A swell of love inside his heart for Aria, for Bella, and for pretty much everyone else in his life at the moment. For once, it felt like there was nothing that could dampen his spirits. In what world had he ever expected to sit with his parents, his brothers, and his friends to watch his daughter in her first horse show?
“Look at my girl go!” Laredo felt so proud he was in danger of popping wide open.
Beside him, Jesse, Darren, Maggie, and Jaeger were clapping and waving as they watched Bella get her first blue ribbon. Then Laredo heard someone a few rows down in the bleachers snort. There was a ripple of unease throughout the crowd, and Laredo began to wonder what was going on.
That was when he heard the first “boo” coming from the front row. It received an immediate reaction from Joe Hernandez. “Hey! You don’t boo a kid! What in the hell is the matter with you?”
The spectator turned around and made a face at Joe Hernandez. “Well, what do you expect when that Hernandez brat is winning on a stolen horse?”
“Stolen?” Jesse stood up. She pointed her finger at the stranger. “Look here, you. I don’t know where you heard that crap, but it’s a lie! Cal Hernandez bred that horse on the Hernandez ranch, and that’s a fact!”
The spectator whispered to his companion. They were both wearing Flying W T-shirts, which seemed to suggest not only where their kid rode but also where they’d heard the rumor. “Of course you would say that,” the stranger asserted. “You’re a Collins. Everyone knows the Collins and Hernandez ranches are stealing good stock from the Flying W and using Clouds End Farm to sell it off!”
Beside Laredo, he could feel Jesse getting ready to launch herself at the strangers who had dared to say anything negative about her integrity—or her friends. Laredo put his hand out. “Don’t, Jess, it isn’t worth it. These people are victims of Paul Weatherby’s smear campaign just as surely as the rest of Denver is at the moment. Someday they’ll wake up and realize the man is a flaming liar.”
The strangers drew back in surprise and turned back around to cheer for their kid, who was apparently getting a sixth place ribbon. Laredo clapped politely because that’s what the Hernandez family did. They played nice even when other people didn’t.
Soon the negative comments were forgotten. They were too busy cheering for Bella’s pole bending class where she was so overeager that she knocked over two poles. Laredo and Jaeger were groaning but clapping for their favorite girl, but her big barrel racing debut was coming right up.
The excitement was palpable. Laredo waved to Aria as Bella put her determined face on and steered Smokey into the alley where they would get a running start. Laredo was leaning forward. He felt as though he were the one in the saddle. Then the buzzer went off and Smokey shot forward. Bella was not doing a million miles an hour. But that girl was moving pretty darn fast for a nine-year-old riding a little grey mare. Laredo whooped and hollered with his family and friends as Bella rounded the last turn and sent Smokey galloping home. They crossed the finish line, and it was over! All twenty-two seconds of it! Laredo felt like he’d run a marathon and won. His whole body sagged with giddy relief.
“You’re very lucky to have found someone like Aria to share this with you.”
Laredo looked over to see that his mother, Avery, had moved closer to him on the bench. Laredo nodded his head. “It’s about time I did it right. Don’t you think?”
“We all knew you’d get around to it.”
Avery Hernandez had just opened her mouth to say something else, when Laredo suddenly spotted a ghost coming toward them up the bleacher steps. It had been so long since Laredo had seen his ex-wife that he had almost forgotten how one look at her could curdle his blood. From her bleached-blond hair to her fake nails and thick makeup. She looked like she was attending a high society event, not a kids’ horseshow. On his right side, Jesse let out a low curse. It was enough to let the entire Hernandez family know that something was most definitely up.
“Hello, Laredo.” Helena let her gaze travel dismissively over the assembled friends and family sitting on the bleachers. “I see the peanut gallery came with you. How sweet.”
“Why are you here?” Laredo asked flatly. He could not believe she would have the gall to show up.
Helena gave a shrug. “My daughter was competing. My sister told me. She said she saw you. I thought I would come and watch.”
“You mean you thought you’d come and see if there was something in this for you,” Jesse retorted. “You never change.”
“And you’re still mooching off the Hernandez family,” Helena shot back. Her cool gaze dismissed Jesse out of hand. “How cute. The little orphan still thinks she’s important.”
“Enough,” Laredo growled. “We don’t need you here. We don’t want you here. You should go.”
Just then, Laredo heard a pounding on the bleachers. Bella was coming. She was beaming, and Aria was right behind her with a huge smile on her face as well. Bella was just bubbling over. She laughed and launched herself at her father.
“Did you see?” Bella asked excitedly. “Did you see us? Did you?”
“I saw you, sweetheart. You were amazing.”
“Did you see us, Aunt Jesse?” Bella grabbed onto Jesse and pulled herself into her aunt’s lap.
Jesse was laughing and giving Bella a high-five. Laredo could not help but notice that Bella had not even noticed Helena. Aria had though. Her glowering frown was proof enough of that.
“Why are you here?” Aria demanded of Helena. “Nobody wants you here.” Aria gestured to Bella. “She doesn’t even know you.”
Helena’s expression grew even more pinched. “Excuse me, Isabella, I wanted to talk to you about your performance today.”
Bella actually turned and frowned at Helena. “I don’t talk to strangers. Do you know my daddy? Maybe he could introduce us and then I could talk to you about my horse, Smokey. My stepmom, Aria, is helping me learn to ride her. It’s fun. Lots of fun!” Bella was picking up speed. She babbled a mile a minute about Aria’s farm and Aria’s horses and how Aria was going to teach her to rope calves.
Laredo couldn’t stop the smile that touched his features. He shook his head at Helena. “This is what you wanted. Remember? You didn’t want any part of th
is. You didn’t want any part of us. You don’t get to change your mind just because you’re single again.”
“Who said…?” Helena’s brow smoothed as she realized that she’d given herself away. “You’ll regret this. You know you will. I was the only thing that made you tolerable to society.”
Laredo did not even have to think twice before throwing a response her way. “Then it’s a good thing I don’t care what society thinks. I’m happy with my life. I’m in a fantastic relationship, and I have a beautiful daughter. I think I’m a pretty damn lucky man.” Laredo turned away from Helena and winked at Aria. “I could not have hoped for a better path for my life. And that’s my story.”
“So, you’re sticking to it!” Bella supplied with glee.
The poor kid hadn’t even noticed Helena as any more than an interested spectator at a horse show. With that sort of reception, Helena didn’t stick around. She left, and the Hernandez family returned to enjoying their afternoon together. Soon though, Laredo knew that they were going to have to tackle these rumors from the Flying W. Nobody called the Hernandez family a bunch of crooks. Not without consequences.
SCUFFED COWBOY BOOTS
Chapter One
“Wait! Wait!” Melody Ann Farrell sprinted for the elevator and nearly cried with relief when a hand appeared in the opening to stop the darn thing from closing and leaving her to wait for the next ride. “Oh, thank you! Hold the elevator, please?”
The doors whooshed back open, and Melody slipped through the opening. The thing smelled faintly of old cheese. Why did elevators always smell like that? Or there were the ones in fancy hotels and stuff that reeked of cologne. That was worse. At least Melody thought so. She hated old cheese. She hated cologne. She pretty much hated everything right now. Of course, that was why she was in the elevator.
“Excuse me. Ma’am?”
Melody’s eyes opened, and she leaped away from the wall. She had been leaning against the cool metal of the elevator with her back pressed against it and her hands trapped behind her butt. It was a totally undignified position, but then she’d sort of forgotten that she wasn’t alone.
“What floor?”
“Uh, seven?”
Oh, of course. The guy in the elevator with her looked like a millionaire playboy. It was just the two of them. When did that ever happen in a potentially crowded office building at three in the afternoon? How uncomfortable. He was wearing a suit that had to be custom tailored because it fit him like a glove. The black pinstriped fabric of his jacket emphasized the width of his broad shoulders and the trimness of his waist. His legs were long and lean. Somehow, she expected him to be wearing cowboy boots, but he wasn’t.
This was Denver. Easily half of the businessmen in this town dressed in cowboy boots or some kind of Western suit. It was sort of odd, but she got the feeling that this individual was trying very hard to be the exact opposite of the typical Western businessman. There was a black laptop bag slung over one of his shoulders that seemed wildly out of place. She was just trying to decide if he had applied a generous amount of product to his hair just to suppress the obvious curl in the short black style when she realized that he was staring at her.
His eyes were the most intense shade of blue that she had ever seen. “Everything all right?” The question in their blue depths made her knees feel strange and watery.
“Sure. Yeah. Why would you ask?” The words just tumbled off her tongue without any thought behind them. There were probably a hundred reasons he’d ask. First and foremost, the fact that she was staring at him as though she’d never seen a man before.
The corners of his mouth turned up in a smile. “You seem a little lost.”
“Lost?” That wasn’t very flattering. “I know where I’m going.”
“Geographical location often has nothing to do with the concept of lost.” Melody could have listened to his smooth low voice all day long. Nothing had ever been more soothing or more—well, the word sexy came immediately to mind.
Oh my God! Get a grip!
This guy probably dated models. He obviously had money. He was even more obviously successful. They were in a building full of attorney’s offices. He was probably headed in to talk about his billion dollar investments and how to avoid paying taxes on them.
Melody’s only experience with a tax write-off was when she tried to find all of her health insurance information so she could avoid paying at the end of the year because of her tips at the coffee shop where she worked. She could not even imagine what it would be like to have millions of dollars and pay someone to help you figure out how to keep it all. A dollar would be welcome, much less a million.
“I think,” Melody told him slowly, “that right now the best I can hope for is to know my geographical location and be happy that I’ve got that much of a head start.”
His elegant eyebrows lifted, and he adjusted the bag on his shoulder. The movement caused his scent to waft across the elevator. Melody sucked in a quick breath of surprise. It was spicy and so very male. Hints of sandalwood, spice, and fresh mountain air mingled together in her nose to create the most wonderful bouquet of man that Melody had ever experienced.
She tried to memorize his scent and the way he looked. This guy would be at the top of her fantasy lineup. Each and every time she tried to go to sleep in her one-room apartment with its sagging sofa bed, she would pull out this memory and imagine nights on the town with this guy.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he told her quietly. “When a person is pushed to the point in their life where they are only existing from moment to moment, then some of the joy is lost in life. Don’t you think?”
“Easy for you to say.” Damn. Did she really say that out loud? It was so combative! She wasn’t trying to be a total shrew. Sometimes her life just made her feel like one.
“Why is it easy?” He cocked his head to one side. “You think my life is easy or something? Is that it?”
“Isn’t it?” Come on. Was this guy for real? Melody glanced up at the display on the elevator. They were passing the fourth floor. Could this thing move any slower?
“No. I don’t think my life is easy.” He narrowed that blue gaze and frowned at her. “I have a crazy family. I have expectations to fulfill and problems to manage and bullshit to deal with just like everybody else.”
“But having money makes that easy.” Did he not know this? How could he not know this? “Money changes everything. Money makes things possible. It opens doors and closes the windows that we want to jump out of—figuratively speaking of course.”
“Wow.” His shoulders moved as he snorted. “You’re really adept at snap judgments against people. Aren’t you now?”
It was funny, but in that one moment, he didn’t seem quite as polished as he looked. The cadence of his speech changed. There was almost the hint of an accent in his words. A drawl perhaps. Whatever it was, it was not the speech of a polished blue-blooded trust fund baby. Interesting, but totally not her problem.
The elevator dinged. There were only ten floors in the building. Presumably he was going to the top, because that’s where the most expensive law firm in the city resided. But Melody was getting off on seven, and that’s where they were.
“I don’t make snap judgments,” Melody felt compelled to say as she exited the elevator. “I use the information in front of me and draw conclusions based on patterns of behavior and the way people dress, act, and speak.” Why Melody felt vindicated by this little speech, she could not say.
Marching down the hallway and away from the elevator, Melody did not turn to look when it dinged closed behind her. She refused to see if the guy had gotten off on this floor, or had continued on. It didn’t matter anyway. She would never see him again. Besides, she had more important things to do.
Pausing in front of the estate lawyer’s office, Melody pushed her way into his office and found the elderly gentleman bent over his copy machine. He was very generous in shape and wore a suit as ancient as the guy
in the elevator’s had been new. The gentleman had a few scraps of white hair on top of his head, and there were fleshy rolls at the base of his neck.
Melody had to put her hand over her mouth to prevent a yelp of surprise from slipping out. Perhaps she was just overwrought about everything, but for some reason, the level of hilarity at the sight of the man’s rather large backside in his ancient trousers was almost too funny for words.
“Ahem.” Melody cleared her throat and just barely managed not to choke on her laugh. “Mr. Watson?”
The booty bent over in front of her jiggled as Mr. Watson realized he was not alone. Putting his hands on the tops of his thighs, he ponderously gained an upright position and looked behind him. His face was jowly, and those scraps of white hair were pretty much all at the back of his poor head.
“Oh, hello there!” He sounded like a cartoon professor.
Melody forced herself to exhale. Laughing at him was not in her best interest right now. She could do that in the elevator on the way back down. “Hello, Mr. Watson. I’m Melody Ann Farrell. We spoke on the phone. Remember?”
“Of course! Young lady, come in, come in!” There was a very strange inflection in his words, as though he were trying very hard to parody a certain Southern fried chicken mascot. “I have those papers for you to sign right now.”
“Papers. Right.” Watson had been the estate lawyer for Melody’s grandparents. She wasn’t prepared to sign papers. That seemed to indicate that something had happened. “Can I ask what the papers are for?”
“Your grandparents left you a sizeable little piece of property on the front range.” He acted as though she should have known exactly what he was talking about. He was now standing before her with his fingers laced together over his round belly. “I’ve managed to find a buyer for the property, and the sale will cover the taxes.” He swept his hands out in a very overdone gesture. “Problem solved!”
