The Horse Trainer's Secret

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  Then he turned on his heel and walked away.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Well?” Nick stood in front of his father and Lucy, waiting.

  After leaving Megan, he’d gone to his folks’ place, where for the rest of the day he’d paced up and down the living-room floor. He’d raged. He’d fumed.

  He’d told Beck and Lucy about Megan being pregnant.

  He’d told them about her infernal independent streak that was two miles too wide.

  “Don’t you have anything to say?”

  He caught the look that Lucy gave Beck. “I think I’ll leave this one to you,” she said, patting his father’s arm. Then she crossed to Nick, kissed his cheek and left the room.

  He heard her calling to Shelby and Sunny, who’d been out in the fenced yard leading Shelby’s new horse around on a rope, that it was time to get ready for bed.

  “What do you want me to say, Nick?”

  Nick raked his fingers through his hair. “How the hell do I know? She’s pregnant, Dad! And she didn’t tell me.”

  “From what you’ve told me about her, are you really surprised she needed some time before she did?”

  “Some time? She got pregnant in March. It’s freaking July. Just because she grew up without a dad doesn’t mean our child needs to. She should have trusted me. She should have been honest.” He threw himself down onto a chair. “Explain that to me, because I’m at a loss.”

  Beck sighed and perched on the chair opposite him. When they heard Shelby and Sunny tromping up the stairs, he looked in their direction and smiled slightly. “Not everybody finds honesty as easy as you.”

  He spread his hands, looking down at his palms. “I’ve loved two women in my life, son. Your mother and Lucy. Harmony gave me you and Shelby. Lucy gave me Sunny. And the one thing I learned after we lost your mom and I met Lucy was that time marches on. It marches on whether you have someone you love by your side or not. And I’m here to tell you, it’s a lot better with someone you love. So the only thing I really have to say is actually a question. Do you love Megan or don’t you?”

  “Yes, I love her. I want to strangle her at the moment, but yeah. I’ve known it for a while now.” He scraped his hand down his face. “But what good is it if she won’t trust me?”

  “I’ve never really told you much about my childhood,” Beck said. “It wasn’t...great.” He shook his head and sighed. “But I met your mom. And she loved me despite myself. It took that—meeting her. Loving her. It took all of it for me to learn how to trust. Maybe it’ll take you loving Megan for her to learn the same thing.”

  “She thinks I was kissing Delia Templeton,” Nick admitted. “I don’t think trust has a snowball’s chance in hell now.”

  Beck’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Were you kissing Delia Templeton?”

  Nick shoved off the chair. “No. Well, yeah, there was a kiss but not because I initiated it.”

  “Did you stop it?”

  He swore. “Of course I stopped it!” He paced across the living room and back again. “I was at Vivian’s and Delia just threw herself at me. Right outta the clear blue sky. She’s always been flirty, you know, but—” He shook his head. “Next thing I know, Megan’s tearing outta there in her truck like the devil’s on her heels.” He clawed his fingers through his hair again. “Thing is, Megan’s the one who said I should’ve told Delia flat out that I wasn’t interested in her that way.”

  “Probably,” Beck said mildly. “But why didn’t you?”

  Nick grimaced. “I’ve known her a long time. I thought if I just ignored it, she’d get the message. I didn’t particularly want to hurt her feelings. Which I ended up doing, anyway, when I realized Megan was there.”

  He picked up the squat glass of whiskey that he’d been nursing for as long as he’d been nursing his anger and finished it off. “I’ll be surprised if Delia ever speaks to me again after the way I lit into her, and god only knows how that’ll affect my working relationship with Vivian.”

  “I wouldn’t worry much about that if I were you. Vivian doesn’t strike me as a woman who is swayed too much by the opinions of others, including her grandchildren. Do you know why Megan was there?”

  “Looking for me,” he said wearily. He sat back down. “Montrose said he was showing her the way to Vivian’s office, but she changed her mind and decided to wait outside.”

  “Any chance Delia knew that?”

  “And what? Chose to plant one on me for Megan’s benefit?”

  “It’s been pretty apparent to those of us who know you that you’ve been taken with Megan from the get-go,” his dad said dryly. “Delia’s not blind. Desperate people do desperate things.”

  Nick sat forward and rubbed his face. For a day that had started out with such promise, it had turned into a crap fiesta. He pushed to his feet.

  “What’re you going to do?”

  He exhaled and spread his hands. “Find a solution.”

  Beck smiled. “There you go.”

  * * *

  Some solutions, however, were easier than others.

  And it shouldn’t have come as any real shock that when he went to look for Megan for the second time that day, this time she really was nowhere to be found.

  Not the Cozy Night.

  The housekeeping cart was sitting outside room 22 when he got there and he looked in to see the usual maid, Chastity, vacuuming the carpet.

  The beds were made.

  The closet rod was empty.

  There were no cowboy boots or sandals on the floor.

  “Do you know where she went?” he asked the girl. “Megan?”

  “Sorry.” Chastity pointed. “She left that, though, along with a nice tip for me. I’m just not sure if she forgot it or what.”

  He picked up the napkin he’d drawn on that first time they’d gone to Pizza Bella.

  “I think she probably just left it behind,” he murmured and slipped it into his pocket. “Thanks, Chastity.”

  The girl bobbed her head and turned on her vacuum again.

  Nick left.

  He retraced his route from earlier that day, keeping his eyes peeled for a sign of her truck. He drove from one end of town to the other; he called everyone that he knew who knew her, and nobody had seen her. He even traipsed through the barns himself at Crossing West just to be sure J.D. wasn’t mistaken when she insisted that Megan was no longer there.

  It was late by the time he gave up. The only other logical place for her to have gone would be home. Back to Angel River. Earlier, he hadn’t believed that she’d leave town without seeing everything through up on the mountain.

  But that was before she’d seen Delia kissing him.

  The problem was half the town would be turning out soon for the library grand opening. Vivian expected him to be there for it.

  Or, at least, she had been expecting him.

  After the fiasco that afternoon with Delia, Nick wasn’t sure about Vivian at all. Regardless of what his dad believed.

  No closer to an answer, he finally drove back to his condo.

  And there she was.

  Sitting on his front steps in the pool of light cast by his porch light.

  He closed his eyes, exhaling on a prayer.

  He got out of his SUV and slowly approached. “I went looking for you.”

  Megan rubbed her hands down her thighs and stood.

  She’d changed. She wasn’t wearing the jeans and the wildly colorful blouse. Now she was wearing a dress.

  He caught himself from shaking his head, not sure that he wasn’t seeing things. “I’ve never seen you in a dress before.”

  She twitched the skirt, which looked sort of like denim and reached to just above her knees. “I borrowed it from April this afternoon.” Her chin came up. “You might as well know. She and Jed know about the b
aby.”

  Which meant by now most of the family would know, too.

  She tugged at the dress again. “Looks stupid, I know.”

  “You look beautiful.” His throat felt tight. “You always look beautiful. In a hard hat. In jeans. In a dress. In nothing at all.” He cleared his throat. “How long have you been sitting here?”

  “Two bottles long.” She gestured at the empty water bottles sitting on the step and shifted. “I wasn’t going to drive around town again looking for you. I figured you had to come back sooner or later.”

  “You’re smarter than me. I drove around town twice today looking for you.”

  She shifted again and looked away.

  He stepped closer. “I wasn’t kissing Delia Templeton,” he said.

  Her lashes swept down. “I know.”

  “She just—You what?”

  “She told me.”

  He had to shake his head. “It’s been a long-ass day here, sweetheart. You’re gonna have to catch me up.”

  “Can I—” She looked around at everything but him. “Can I use your bathroom first? Two bottles of water and—”

  He swore and took the stairs in a single step to unlock the door and pull it open. “Go.”

  She bolted inside for the powder room just off the foyer.

  He threw away the water bottles and started to close the front door, but then stopped and left it open. The last thing he wanted to do was spook her by hemming her in.

  He leaned against the back of the couch and waited for her to emerge.

  She did, just a few minutes later, her cheeks looking flushed. She clasped her hands in front of her. “I should have told you,” she said abruptly. “As soon as I realized I was pregnant.”

  He nodded. “You should have.”

  She moistened her lips. “And I’m sorry that I didn’t.”

  His dad’s words hung in his mind. “Okay.”

  “And about Delia—”

  He lifted his hand. “I don’t care about Delia as long as you don’t care about Delia.”

  “But you said to catch you up.”

  “And I had ninety seconds to rethink that. We’ll waste time later talking about how and why she told you the truth. Right now, the focus is you. And me. And nothing else.”

  Her hand drifted over her abdomen. “I don’t expect anything. N-no matter what you said earlier today. I’m capable of—”

  “Tough.”

  “What?”

  “I said, tough.”

  She shifted, giving him a wary look. “I don’t understand exactly what that means.”

  “Then I’ll be clearer. It means I expect everything.” He pushed away from the couch. “When you first came back here in May, and we went for Chinese, I lied to you, too.”

  Her eyebrows pulled together.

  “I told you I had no expectations. Remember?”

  “I remember everything.” Her voice was husky.

  “Probably the biggest lie I’ve ever told.”

  She watched him warily.

  “Because I expect everything. And I should have told you that back in the beginning when you were pretending that nothing had happened between us. I shouldn’t have just left a few messages for you at Angel River and tolerated you ignoring me.”

  She looked away, her lips set.

  “I shouldn’t have allowed the time to slip by just because I knew you’d be back. I should have told you that I expected everything where you’re concerned.”

  He lifted her chin until her eyes stopped shying away from his. “I expect your days and your nights. I expect your strength and your fears. Your laughter and your temper and—” he brushed his thumb over her cheek “—your tears. I expect you to let me love you until there are no days left. Today. Tomorrow.” His voice got hoarse. “Always,” he croaked. He took a breath. “And I expect you to love me back just as hard. I should have told you all of that. Before you even knew about this.” He slid his hand down her belly and covered her hand with his. “Because I knew then how I felt about you. And I should have made it very clear, so you’d have time to get used to it. So you wouldn’t be so afraid. And so that you would understand and know that there would never be any Delias or anyone else for me as long as there is you.”

  Her eyes flickered. “But the baby—”

  “Will grow up with an amazing mother. But this isn’t about the baby. It isn’t about whether or not you could do motherhood all on your own. Or if I could do fatherhood on my own.

  “This is about us. You and me. You don’t have to admit you love me yet. You don’t even have to agree to marry me yet. Maybe you’re not ready to trust your heart, but I am.”

  Her eyes shimmered. “If I get used to you and you leave—”

  “Never,” he said swiftly. “Megan. I am yours. And you’re mine. That’s it. That’s all. It is set in stone as hard as the granite on Rambling Mountain. The baby?” He pressed his forehead to hers for a moment. “Sweetheart, the baby’s just icing on the cake.”

  Megan sucked in a shaking breath. She stared up at Nick. At his gray gaze that surrounded her in warmth and comfort and everything that she’d never thought she’d wanted. “Icing?”

  He kissed her nose. Then her cheeks. Then her lips. His kiss was chaste. Lingering. Loving.

  If she hadn’t already been falling for him, she would have now just from the sweetness of his kiss. It didn’t shake her to her core, she realized. It filled her to her core.

  “But I live at Angel River.”

  “Or you could live with me.”

  She looked beyond him at the living room. “Here?”

  “Here. Anywhere.” He cupped her cheek. “But maybe on a particular meadow that gets covered in wildflowers every June.”

  Her heart skipped a beat and the flood in her eyes overflowed.

  “It really doesn’t matter where a home is as long as it’s where we both want to be. You know I want to be with you. And I’m pretty sure you want to be with me. But you gotta admit it, sweetheart. You just have to say the words. And I’m yours.”

  When something seems too good to be true...

  She sniffed. “Rory is going to love you.”

  He gave a half laugh. “Not really the answer I’m after here.”

  “What you’re after is my heart. A heart that you trust.”

  His eyes suddenly gleamed. “That’s the idea. So? What do you think? A farmhouse on a meadow? Pretty sure you’ve got a lock on a job up on the mountain if you just say the word.”

  “Angel’s Flight,” she said huskily.

  “What?”

  She smiled and swiped her cheek. “That’s the name April and Jed finally chose for the lodge. Angel’s Flight.”

  “It’s perfect. But you still haven’t answered me, Megan, and I gotta tell you, my patience is about ready to run out.”

  She ran her fingers through his thick dark hair and stared into his soft gray eyes. Nick Ventura. Whose heart was a carrot that she could no longer deny.

  She pressed a soft kiss to his lips, then twisted away from his embrace.

  “Megan—”

  She went over to the front door and pushed it closed. Flipped the lock.

  Then she turned back to him. “You’re mine,” she said and took his hand in hers. She kissed his palm and pressed it to her heart and then the swell of their child. “And we are yours.”

  Epilogue

  The next day dawned bright and clear and Megan tried hard not to feel self-conscious as she and Nick arrived at the library grand opening where a large crowd had already gathered.

  It wasn’t so much the fact that she and Nick were holding hands as he led her to the front row of white chairs that had been marked off as reserved, as the dress. The same one from the night before. She couldn’t stop twitching at it a
s they hurried to their spots.

  “Relax,” Nick told her for at least the third time since they’d left his condo. “You look beautiful in that dress.” He sat in the seat next to her and slid his arm around her shoulder. “In fact, I’m hard-pressed to know whether I like your butt in jeans better than I like your ankles in a dress. Pretty much, I’d rather we ditch this thing, go back to bed and make our own July Fourth fireworks.”

  “Keep your voice down,” she said with a welcome bit of familiar tartness. She was still Megan, after all. Just a richer version thanks to the man beside her. Staying in bed as long as they had was the reason they’d been nearly late. “You’re due this celebration, too, remember.”

  He leaned close, sliding his palm across her belly. “There are other things due that interest me more.”

  She couldn’t help melting inside a little and threaded her fingers through his. “Delia’s here,” she murmured, watching the woman accompany Vivian and several other people—including Rory and Gage—to the front of the library where the mayor stood alongside the blue ribbon stretched across the entrance. Delia wore huge dark glasses and seemed to be keeping her attention on her grandmother, who was holding oversize gold scissors to cut the ribbon.

  Nick grunted slightly.

  “She didn’t have to tell me the truth,” Megan pointed out. She’d already told him how Delia had shown up at the motel when Megan had been throwing her stuff into her suitcases, intent on escape. “It wasn’t easy for her.”

  “When you and I are rocking on our front porch watching the grandkids play, I’ll think about letting her off the hook.”

  Megan’s eyes were suddenly misty. She lost interest in the ceremonial activity taking place in front of them and focused only on him. “We haven’t even had this baby yet and you’re already imagining grandkids?”

  “Imagining is where amazing things start, remember?” He lifted their linked hands and kissed her palm. “Close your eyes and tell me what you see.”

  But she didn’t need to close her eyes. She stared, instead, into his. And saw everything she needed.