Charm School for Cowboys

by Meg Maxwell

  “Going blond?” He gestured at the wig.

  Sarah glanced at her hand. “Oh—I almost forgot I was holding it. I was about to practice on a new style a client is interested in trying. Better to mess up the wig than this client’s gorgeous hair, trust me.” She put the wig on a table. “Come sit in the kitchen. I just made coffee.”

  He followed her into the huge kitchen. Edmund Ford’s house was amazing. Jake’s ranch was pretty big, but Jake would say this house was three times the size of his. Somehow, the place managed to be homey and cozy. Maybe Sarah’s doing.

  Once they were seated with coffee, Jake said, “A man came to the Full Circle today. I didn’t recognize his car and when he stepped out, he was wearing sunglasses. The moment he took off the shades I noticed we had very similar green eyes. Like yours.”

  Sarah gasped. She covered her mouth with her hand. “Your twin.”

  “Yes. His name is Colt Asher. Sarah, he’s an FBI agent. He’s on a case right now and couldn’t stay longer than five minutes, but he said he’d be back when he could, probably around November, and we’d talk then.”

  “Oh my God. Colt Asher. How on earth...?”

  “Remember I told you that my brother CJ had always been uncomfortable about the idea of my having a twin brother? Well, we came across a surname and city—Houston—on some old paperwork concerning the adoption in my father’s old trunks in the attic. I wasn’t planning on doing anything with the information—not just yet, anyway—but it turns out that CJ went ahead and tracked down my twin and emailed him.”

  “Wow,” Sarah said. “I can’t believe it.”

  “Me, either. I still can’t wrap my mind around it. And apparently, CJ also couldn’t, despite being the one to find the guy and bring him to me. When CJ saw him arrive, he got overwhelmed with what it meant, what it might mean for my relationship with CJ, and he booked out on a gelding and got thrown.”

  “Oh, I see. Oh, Jake, I hope you know that wasn’t your fault.”

  “Well, I feel better about the whole thing because CJ is going to be fine. He has a broken leg, but it could have been a lot worse. We talked some in the hospital. Everything’s fine between us now.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. I’m very touched by the fact that he wrote that email.”

  “That goes double for me.”

  “What’s he like—our Colt Asher?”

  “I couldn’t get too much of a sense of him,” Jake said. “He’s very much a secret agent. That I could tell. But he seemed like a good person. I let him know you live in town too and he seemed glad to hear that. He’ll be back around November, he said.”

  “Full circle,” Sarah said, reaching for Jake’s hand. “Like your ranch.”

  His heart moved in his chest. “Full circle.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The sight before Emma was so startling, so shocking, that Emma almost dropped the long loaf of garlic bread she’d just pulled from the oven.

  Grizzle stood before her in a suit and tie, his crazy, wild hair neatly cut, his beard shaved completely. “Came to tell ya I won’t be here for dinner. I’ve decided to go to Michelle’s and show her the new me and invite her to Hurley’s or maybe that fancy Italian place for a change.”

  “Grizzle, you look so handsome,” Emma said, almost speechless. She couldn’t stop staring.

  “When the barber finished shaving off the beard, I thought I wouldn’t recognize myself,” Grizzle said. “But it turns out I do, actually more than ever, if that makes sense. I feel like myself again. Isn’t that nuts?”

  “I think I understand,” she said. “I’d hug you, but I have marinara sauce all over my apron and I don’t want to get a drop on that nice suit.”

  “Pretty spiffy, huh?” he said, glancing down at his dark blue jacket and pants with a gray tie with tiny black horses on it.

  “Pretty spiffy,” she repeated, absolutely wowed.

  “Thanks for everything you did for me, Emma,” he said. “You and Jake. He really didn’t need a haircut, but he got one anyway to be in the chair next to mine.”

  That was Jake, all right. “I didn’t do a thing. It was all you,” she said.

  “I’d better go. See you at breakfast.”

  Emma couldn’t stop smiling as she ladled the fragrant meatballs into the big serving bowls, then added spaghetti with Aunt Essie’s delicious marinara sauce, well, her recipe, into another dish.

  But when she brought everything into the dining room, only Jake was sitting at the table. As always, she was struck by how incredibly handsome he was, how drawn she was to him. In her fantasy, they would have dinner by candlelight, their arms entwined as they fed each other spaghetti, unromantic as meatballs and spaghetti might be.

  She liked his haircut. Short, but still slightly ruffled and impossibly sexy.

  “Just you and me tonight,” he said, raising his beer glass at her.

  “I hope you’re hungry, then. I made a ton of meatballs. I know Hank loves his meatballs so I went a little overboard. He’ll have them tomorrow for lunch, I’m sure.” She could ramble on and on. Why was Jake making her so nervous? Because they were alone? Because she was in love?

  “I barely ate today because I was so worried about CJ. Now that I know he’s awake and will be coming home tomorrow, I’m starving.”

  She smiled. “I’m so glad he’s going to be fine. Where are the guys?”

  Jake served himself a heaping portion of spaghetti and added three meatballs on top. “Turns out Hank is on a date with Fern. Golden is out with Katie at a lecture. CJ won’t be home till tomorrow. And Grizzle said he was going to stop in to show you his transformation before going to Michelle’s.”

  “I was speechless. And my heart almost burst. He’s come to mean so much to me. All the cowboys have.”

  He took a sip of his beer. “You know, that first day you came here, I asked if you’d give the guys some tips on dealing with women and relationships, and suddenly, they’re all transformed. Am I paying you enough?”

  She grinned. “And then some.” But she could feel her smile begin to fade as she looked at the ring on her finger, her mother’s beautiful diamond in the gold band.

  Jake’s words in the hospital came back to her—about why CJ had tracked down Jake’s twin. Because he knew how badly I wanted it. He did it at his own expense.

  She stared at the ring and recalled her own response. That’s what love is, Jake. That’s what people who love each other do.

  The proposal. The agreement to the fake engagement. Coming to her ultrasound appointment. The nursery furniture.

  The kisses, few and far between, but kisses, nonetheless.

  Could her aunt Essie have been right, after all? Did Jake Morrow love her?

  Jake then took a piece of garlic bread. “I’m sorry I walked away from you in the hospital. I was pretty overwhelmed. But CJ and I had a good talk. He’s going to propose to Stella.”

  “Wow!” Emma said. “That’s great. “And I know you must be very relieved that he’s going to be okay.”

  Jake twirled spaghetti on his fork. “I am. I talked to CJ about why he sent the letter. He said he did it because he knew how much I wanted to meet my twin but that he also knew I might never actually go through with it. Out of fear of the unknown. I wonder if he’s right about that.”

  “When you found out you had a twin you never knew existed, you wrote a letter to your birth mother to be placed in your adoption file,” she pointed out.

  He nodded. “That’s true. But that was five years ago and I remember being relieved when she didn’t respond until very recently. He said I didn’t like surprises and that’s true. I guess I like knowing what’s what.”

  Emma glanced at her handsome faux fiancé. This whole situation had to be so hard for him. “I guess you’ll be
relieved when we can call off the fake engagement, then,” she said, feeling like a heel for fishing but unable to ask him outright how he felt.

  “Of course I will,” he said, breaking off a piece of garlic bread.

  She waited for a “but.” For more. For any additional words to follow, but he just gave her a tight smile and twirled spaghetti on his fork.

  She felt her heart split in two. She knew he didn’t love her. That all this time he was just being Jake Morrow, the ultimate cowboy riding to her rescue at his own expense.

  She pushed around a meatball on her plate, her appetite gone. “I’m going to tell my dad the truth.”

  Jake stared at her. “What? He’ll sell the farm.”

  She put down her fork. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. About truth and doing what’s right even when it hurts like hell. You proposed to me because you thought it was the right thing to do under the circumstances, despite everything. CJ wrote that email to your twin even though it scared him to death. If I want to live by my rules and stand on my own two feet, I need to let my mother’s farm go. I need to practice what I preach.”

  “But, Emma, you don’t have to stand alone. I—”

  He didn’t finish his sentence. He took a slug of his beer. But she had no doubt about what he was about to say. That she had him. That she didn’t have to be a lone wolf.

  “I have to stand up for living honestly,” she said. “That’s always been my whole point. To live on my own terms. But I’m not doing that. I used to think it was about not letting my father control me and tell me how to live my life. But I’ve come to realize, thanks to you and the crew, that there’s a difference between controlling someone and offering support or a shoulder or a hand. You’re the latter, Jake. And to be truthful, I’ve liked having a strong shoulder. I’ve liked having good friends. But it’s time to tell the truth.”

  She ran out before he could try to stop her.

  * * *

  Jake sat on the porch in the waning light, Redford on his lap. Emma had left only five minutes ago and it felt like an hour. Two hours. If he took CJ’s little speedracer, he could easily catch up to her on the main road. She’d get out of her car. He’d get out of his. He’d run to her and tell her not to confess the truth to her father because he wanted their engagement to be real. He wanted to propose for real, slip that ring off her finger and put it back on for real. He wanted to marry her. Not to save the farm.

  Because he loved her.

  He knew with absolute clarity, and yet he remained seated in the chair. When you loved someone, you had to let her go if that’s what she wanted, and that was what Emma wanted.

  Even if you broke your heart doing it.

  * * *

  Emma walked through the apple orchard, saying goodbye, apologizing to her mother for not being able to keep the farm in the family, and holding back tears that kept threatening. She was meeting her father in the house in five minutes to “talk about something” important, and she needed to be clear-eyed.

  She stood surveying the back of the house. There was the patio where her mother had brought out just about every one of Emma’s birthday cakes on the table. There was the tire swing hanging from the old oak. There was the spot where her first boyfriend had broken her heart by telling her he didn’t like her, after all, and was now dating someone with bigger boobs. But mostly she recalled walking through these fields with not just her mother but her father, the three of them together. This was their home. Her father had loved her mother—Emma believed that more than she believed anything.

  So how could he want to sell her beloved homestead just to get his way? Emma still couldn’t wrap her mind around that.

  She glanced at her cell phone for the time. She had to go in and face the music, face the truth. You can’t have everything, she chanted to herself. You have your baby-to-be. You have your future. But you don’t have Jake and you won’t have this farm. A sob rose up in her throat and she forced it back.

  You won’t have a fake engagement, she reminded herself, squaring her shoulder and lifting her chin. It was fake. Fake, fake, fake.

  Feeling better, Emma headed in through the back door. Her father was in the kitchen, putting his key ring into the white marble dish on the counter and fixing himself a drink.

  Emma poured herself a cranberry juice and seltzer and went into the living room and sat down. Above the fireplace was an oil painting of the Hurleys—Reginald, Violet and Emma. Again, a sadness gripped her but she moved to a chair that didn’t face the painting.

  “What was so hellfire important?” her father asked, sitting down with his drink. He stirred the lime around the short glass and Emma was transfixed by it, mentally grabbing on to anything to stall. “Please tell me everything is okay with the baby.”

  She appreciated the concern in his voice. “Yes, the baby is fine, Dad.” She cleared her throat. “I need to be honest with you about something.”

  Reginald Hurley snapped his gaze to her. He looked as though he was bracing himself for the worst.

  Emma put down her drink on the coffee table, took a breath, and said, “About this.” She held up her left hand, where her mother’s diamond ring gleamed. She slid it off her finger and put it on the table. Suddenly she felt bereft, as though she’d lost something very dear and special. But how could that be when she and Jake were never engaged for real?

  “What is this?” her father asked, his blue eyes worried. “What’s going on? You got into a fight?”

  “Dad—”

  “Emma, all couples argue. And all couples work it out. You and Jake are meant to be together. I know that more than I know anything.”

  Tears pricked Emma’s eyes. “Dad, Jake and I—”

  “I’ll tell you a little family secret,” Reginald said. “You probably won’t believe this, but your mother broke up with me after we were engaged. She gave me the ring back and everything. She told me I was too controlling and she would not live her life under my thumb.”

  Emma gasped. “Mom never told me that.”

  Reginald Hurley sipped his drink. “I’m not surprised. Violet was pretty private.”

  “Well, I know you did get married, so what happened?”

  Her father glanced up at the family painting, and she knew he was looking specifically at Violet Hurley. Then he looked back at Emma. “I told her that the reason I tried so hard to make everything perfect and keep things in tidy boxes, as she called it, was because I was afraid of everything toppling over. I believe if you do things right, the first time, then you’ve got a fighting chance.”

  “That was enough to make her take back the ring?” Emma asked. It couldn’t possibly be.

  “No. She made me make a promise. That if she was going to marry a man as bossy as I am, that we would have discussions of everything we disagreed on and neither of our votes would cancel something out. If I disagreed with someone she wanted to do or buy, I would have to get over it. And vice versa.”

  Emma raised an eyebrow. She tried to think back on ever overhearing her parents’ disagreements over the years and how they’d resolved things. Her mother had gone on a girls’ weekend every year with her best friends from high school and Reginald Hurley didn’t like it one bit, but off she’d gone, every year. And Violet Hurley couldn’t stand that Reginald would spend a fortune on golf clubs every other year, but his collection constantly grew.

  “I think you and Jake should just come to some sort of agreement,” Reginald concluded. “Make some sort of pact about how you’ll compromise. That’s the couples’ way.”

  “We did, Dad. That’s the problem.” She closed her eyes for a moment, bracing herself for what she was about to say. The truth. “Jake and I were never really planning to marry. He was my fake fiancé so that you wouldn’t sell the farm.”

  Her father stood up, anger shooting
from his blue eyes. “Of all the underhanded—”

  Oh hell, as Jake would say. She felt awful, no matter how necessary she’d thought her lie had been. “I thought if I could just convince you that I’m capable, that I can manage on my own, you wouldn’t sell Mom’s farm.” Tears streamed down her cheeks.

  She really had believed she could do it. That her father would love her more than he cared about propriety. That he didn’t love her more than that hurt like hell.

  Reginald Hurley crossed his arms over his chest and continued to glare at her.

  She might as well tell him the whole truth, she thought, her heart clenching. “And all I managed to do is fall deeply in love with my fake fiancé. I didn’t convince you of anything. And now I’m going to lose everything I love.”

  She wondered what this would mean for her job. Could she bear working at the Full Circle? Living under the same roof with a man who didn’t return her feelings?

  “Emma, I don’t think I’ve ever been so disappointed,” her father said, putting down his glass. He shook his head and turned away.

  “I understand that,” she said, trying to blink back her tears. “But at least I’m not lying anymore. I love you, Dad, even if you are controlling and want things your way. I wish we could have worked out a system like you and Mom had, that both our feelings count. But I suppose in your eyes I’ll always be your child and not your equal.”

  Reginald Hurley stared at her, his eyes narrowing.

  She stood up and sucked in a breath. “In some ways I certainly do take after you with how stubborn I am. I won’t be marrying Jake Morrow. Or anyone.”

  With one last look at the ring on the table, Emma ran out.

  * * *

  Emma spent the next hour driving around town, her stomach in knots, her head a jumble of thoughts. She’d lied to her father and he was furious. He was going to sell the farm.

  For a while there, before she’d confessed that the engagement was a sham, she’d thought her father was remembering their life as a family and the compromises—good compromises—he’d made to have a happy life with his wife. She’d felt a glimmer of hope that he’d include her in that compromise, that he knew he couldn’t have a “my way or the highway” mentality and expect her to hop to it.