“You can’t even get away for an hour?”
She shook her head emphatically. Cody was obviously a spoiled little rich boy who thought he could buy anything and anyone. She wasn’t for sale. Twelve years ago she’d have jumped at the chance of dating a man as rich as he obviously was. Over the years her ideals had changed, and though she liked his country boy looks and charm, she wouldn’t go out with him. Someone like him would take her over. She’d worked hard to become her own person, and no man was going to change her and turn her into the kind of clinging vine her mother had been.
“I guess begging would do me no good? I don’t mind getting down on my knees!”
She giggled, but shook her head again. “Sorry. I’m too busy for any kind of relationship.”
He nodded and returned to his pie. His mind was racing, trying to come up with a way to get her to agree to see him again. He knew he’d do it. He had gotten every girl he was interested in since the company had taken off.
Chapter Two
Cody drove through the open gates of the Galloping Horse Ranch the following afternoon. He’d been a gentleman the night before, leaving Amber at her doorstep without even trying to kiss her. He’d pledged to himself while they’d eaten that he was going to be a part of her life. If he didn’t see her, she wouldn’t fall in love with him.
Cody shook his head. Seeing her had felt like a punch to the gut. He believed in love at first sight, and he knew that’s what this was. He was in love with Amber, and she was going to be his wife, whether she knew it or not.
He parked next to the big house and went to the door. He’d spent the morning buying a new truck and donating his old one to a local charity organization. They didn’t mind the dented fender, and it was a good way for him to give back to the community.
He gave three sharp knocks at the door and waited. After a minute, Amber opened it and looked at him. “I wondered how long it would be before you turned up here.” Instead of inviting him in, she stepped out onto the doorstep with him.
“You know, I’ve always wanted to learn to ride, and now that I know a riding teacher, I figured I should take advantage. How much do lessons cost?” Whatever she asked he’d triple it. He’d pay her ten times her going rate if that’s what it took.
She sighed shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I only teach kids.”
“I’d come when none of your other students were here, so you could make more money without disturbing your schedule with them. And I’d pay triple.”
She looked at him considering. Triple her normal rates would have them paying off the mortgage faster, and maybe she could buy a few head of cattle before Bryan came home from college in May. “My normal rates are $100 per hour.”
“No problem. Can we do daily lessons?” He wanted as much time with her as he could get. “Two hour lessons every weekday maybe?”
She blinked. He was willing to pay $600 per day for riding lessons? Three thousand per week? That would go a long way toward getting the ranch back where it used to be. “Have you ever been on a horse?”
He shook his head. “No, but I’ve watched a lot of Westerns. I should have done this a long time ago.”
Despite her reservations, she nodded. “Okay, we can do two hour lessons every weekday. Would ten in the morning be okay?” That would give her time to do what she needed to do in the mornings before he got there, and give her some time to rest before the evening crowd came in for their lessons.
“Ten would be great.” As long as he got to see her, anytime would be great. If she told him he needed to show up naked at three in the morning, he’d be there without questioning her.
“I’ll be right back.” She slipped into the house and went to her office bringing back a sheet of paper for him to sign and a page explaining what he needed to do. “This is a release to sign in case you’re injured. You’ll need to wear jeans and boots to ride.” She looked him up and down taking in the faded jeans, cowboy boots and thick coat. “What you’re wearing is perfect. You need to get yourself a helmet. I keep some on hand, but none in your size.” She pointed to the bottom of the second paper. “That store will sell you one.”
“When can we start?”
“Tomorrow? Or would you rather wait until next week?”
“Tomorrow’s good. I have some business calls to make, but I can handle them in the afternoon.” Spending two hours with her every day would be perfect. She couldn’t avoid him if she was working for him, and if they did the lessons at ten every morning, surely he’d be able to talk her into lunch occasionally. She’d see what a great guy he was and fall at his feet in love. Or maybe she’d tell him to go away. Either way, it was a chance to see her. “Do I need to bring my own horse?”
“Do you have a horse?”
He shrugged. “I could get one.”
She sighed and shook her head. “No, you can use one of my horses. It’s no problem. You don’t want to go to the trouble and expense of buying one until you know you’re going to enjoy riding.”
He turned and she watched him walk away with mixed emotions. His butt looked great in his jeans, and she was so attracted to him. He was the kind of man she should be staying away from, but he was offering her a lot of money. She had to give him the lessons for the ranch’s sake.
*****
Cody showed up ten minutes early the following morning. He was dressed in jeans and old cowboy boots and wearing a thick coat. In his hand he clutched what was obviously a brand new riding helmet. Amber looked him up and down. Perfect.
“Morning. You ready to learn to ride?”
He nodded, finding he was nervous at the prospect. Not only had he never been on a horse, but he hadn’t really spent any time around them. If he’d been able to come up with another way to spend time with her he’d have done it.
He followed her into the barn and went with her to the stall on the end. “First lesson is saddling your horse. I’ll let you use one of my horses with no problem, but it’s your job to saddle him and wipe him down when you’re done.”
She saddled her own horse and he mimicked her movements with the horse she indicated for him to use. He watched her carefully as she showed him exactly how to adjust the saddle and the stirrups.
He’d watched enough Westerns with his father growing up that he was sure he could just mount the horse in one fluid move and be ready to go, but he was astonished to find it took him three tries to actually get up on the thing.
“It’ll get easier every time.” She didn’t let him see her grin.
She showed him how to hold the reins and what to do to get the horse to move with him. Slowly, they moved around her small corral where she took all the beginners.
By the time they were finished, Cody felt inept. He wasn’t going to stop, though, because it gave him a chance to be with her. He felt a little sore as he got down and rubbed his backside when he thought she wasn’t looking.
She grinned with her back turned as she put the horses back into their stalls. “Maybe you should throw a bit of money at a massage therapist this afternoon.”
He sighed. “I probably will.” She turned and led him out of the barn. “Should I pay you for the whole month today?”
She blinked in disbelief that he could pay for a whole month at $600 per day without even thinking about it. “You can pay weekly or monthly. Whatever you prefer.”
He walked to his new truck, a red Ford F-350, very similar to the old one. He opened the door and reached in, pulling out a pen and a checkbook.
He quickly wrote her a check and handed it to her. Her eyes widened at the amount. “This is more than we agreed on for the whole month.”
He shrugged. “I like round numbers.” He looked over her shoulder at the house, finding that he’d lost a lot of his courage with her after she’d seen just how bad he was on a horse. “How about lunch today?”
She sighed and shook her head. “I can’t. I have some paperwork to do while I eat at my kitchen table.”
He nodde
d, having already expected that answer. He’d get her to go out with him, though. “I’ll be here tomorrow at ten.” Climbing into his truck, he waved at her and drove away.
She breathed a sigh of relief as she watched his truck turn around and drive off. He’d accepted “no” a lot easier than she’d expected him to. She wasn’t sure if she was happy or sad about that.
As soon as Cody was out of sight of the house, he grabbed his phone and used the voice recognition to call his assistant. “I need a standing massage for every afternoon this week at two. Make the arrangements and call me back to let me know where to go. Home would be best if you can make it happen.”
He heard his assistant’s laughter as he hung up the phone. What had he been thinking to hire his younger brother to make his appointments and basically help him keep his life scheduled? Jonathan was always a pain in the butt, and he didn’t need to make fun of him where he could hear.
*****
After his lesson Wednesday, Cody asked the same question he’d asked the day before. “Will you have lunch with me?”
Again she shook her head. “I need to eat a quick lunch and get out onto the ranch. My foreman needs me to help him fix a couple of fences this afternoon.”
He nodded, understanding her work needed to come first, but also understanding she was avoiding him. Sure, she was giving him riding lessons, but she was doing her best to not notice he was there.
He left in his truck, ready to declare an all-out state of emergency. The beautiful woman he was in love with didn’t like him at all.
*****
Thursday he went prepared. “Will you have lunch with me?”
She shook her head. “I can’t take the time. I need to spend the afternoon doing paperwork, and the time it takes to leave and go to a restaurant and come back will put me behind.” She was honest with him, but she wasn’t telling him the full reason. She couldn’t get sucked into a relationship with a man like him. He’d take over her life and she’d let him.
“I knew you’d say that.” Cody opened the door to his truck. “So I brought lunch with me.” He opened a picnic basket with a rotisserie chicken, potato salad and baked beans. “Lunch.” Taking her arm in one hand he carried the basket in the other. “Where should we eat it?”
She sighed, knowing she was caught. “Why don’t we take it inside? It’s a little cool for a picnic.” She led him into the house.
He walked in looking around. The house looked as if it had once been a showplace, but had fallen into disrepair. So many things had obviously been let go as the family had fallen on hard times. She led him to the kitchen table and he spread out the picnic. He’d brought everything from the plates and cups to a flask of lemonade. After pouring them each a glass and sat down beside her. He hoped the food was good, but he’d picked it up from a local deli, so he couldn’t be certain.
They each took a tentative bite of their food, and her face lit up. “This is good!”
“I can’t take credit for it, but I’m glad you like it.” He forked up a bite of potato salad. “So what are your big plans for when your brother comes home and takes over the ranch? What’s his name again?”
“Bryan.” She took another forkful of food. “I’ll probably continue teaching riding lessons. I want the ranch to be restored to where it was before my daddy died.”
“How are you coming on that?”
She smiled. “Well, all the mortgages will be paid off at the end of March, thanks to adding another student. Then we’ll add cattle with the money that’s been going toward the mortgage. I honestly think we’ll be a few hundred head down when he gets home, but if we have a good year, I think we’ll be back to where we were in another year.”
“And then? Will you stay here and live with your brother or will you move off?”
She shrugged looking around her. “This is home. I’ve lived here my whole life, except when I was off at boarding school. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”
“What about when you marry?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think I’ll marry.”
“Why not?” He tried to sound casual, but knew he didn’t pull it off. He was very interested in her answer because he wanted to be the one to marry her, and he’d made that very clear.
“I’m afraid if I marry, I’d let the man run my life. My mother did. She had a great career ahead of her as a concert pianist. She met my father, and never played again except for her own pleasure.” She looked down at her plate. “I don’t want to lose who I am.”
“If you marry the right man, you won’t. For instance, I would encourage you to keep working if you wanted to. Or show horses if you wanted. Or do anything you want. What would you be afraid of losing about yourself?” He asked the question because he truly wanted her answer. He didn’t want to do anything that would upset her or stifle her personality in any way.
She shrugged. “Mainly working with horses I think.”
“If you marry me, I’ll help you build the best horse ranch in Texas. I have the space. I don’t have a stable, but I can have someone start building it today. You can be in charge of everything, and we’ll just use my money.”
She shook her head. “That’s the thing. I don’t want to use your money. I want to make my own. I don’t want to have you ‘take care of me’. I’ll lose who I am!”
He sighed. “I wouldn’t want you to lose who you are. I guess I need to prove to you that you can stay who you are while being in a relationship with me. To do that, though, you need to date me. I keep asking for specific nights when I want to take you out. What would be a good night?”
“I can’t date you.” She shook her head automatically. She didn’t want to lose herself.
“Just give me a chance. Please.”
She looked into his big brown eyes and was reminded of a small puppy. She just couldn’t say no to that look. “All right. The only night I really have open is Sunday, though.”
He nodded, agreeing readily. He was supposed to have a business dinner with Justin on Sunday night, but he’d call him and tell him he had to bring a date. Their business would only take about ten minutes anyway.
“Here’s my stipulation. I’ll go out on this one date with you. If I feel like you’re not the one for me, then you have to stop trying to get me to eat lunch with you every day.”
He tilted his head to the side considering. “Five dates.”
“Two dates.”
“Four dates.”
She sighed. “Three dates.” She held her hand out to shake on it.
He ignored her hand and leaned forward brushing a soft kiss across her lips. “Three dates it is.”
He pulled away before she had a chance to respond. She sucked in a deep breath. If he ever kissed her for real, she was going to melt into a puddle at his feet. This was not a good idea.
“What time on Sunday night?” she asked
He thought about the time it would take him to drive from her ranch to Dallas where he was meeting Justin at an upscale Mexican restaurant. “Would five be okay?” He was meeting Justin at seven so that would give them plenty of time even if the traffic was bad. If it wasn’t, it just gave him a little extra time with Amber, and that couldn’t be a bad thing.
She nodded. “I’ll be ready.”
“The way you’re dressed now will be fine. Just try not to smell like horse manure. It may be an aphrodisiac for me, but I don’t know if it would be for everyone.”
She sighed. “I don’t think you’ve ever seen me when I didn’t smell like horse manure. Why are you asking me out anyway?”
“Because I fell in love with you the moment I laid eyes on you, of course. Could there be any other reason?”
Chapter Three
Amber couldn’t believe how nervous she was as she got ready for her date with Cody on Sunday evening. She was only going out with him to get him to leave her alone about future dates. She laughed for a moment. If she kept telling herself that, she’d eventually believe it, r
ight?
She dressed carefully in her newest pair of jeans, her favorite cowboy boots, which she’d spent thirty minutes scraping the manure off of, and a western shirt. After a moment’s consideration she decided to leave her cowboy hat at home, because she was sure Cody would be wearing his, and they didn’t need to look alike.
She was ready five minutes early and went into the kitchen for some water to calm her nerves. She leaned against the counter drinking it slowly, taking in the kitchen and thinking about how it would look to a stranger. It was a huge room, and had once sported the newest in appliances. She hadn’t bought anything new for the kitchen in the years she’d been running the ranch, except a second hand table, which had replaced the antique she’d had to sell.
It was the same throughout the house. All of the nice furniture had been replaced by garage sale finds. When she could replace them. A lot of rooms were simply left empty. She’d closed off most of the house, and didn’t use it. It was too much for her to keep up with cleaning anyway. They’d had a small army of maids when she was a child keeping up with everything, and now she did it all by herself, but she certainly wasn’t able to keep to the same standard of cleanliness and run her riding school as well. She wished it was better, but she’d made the choices she needed to make.
She heard a loud knock on the door, and straightened up, putting her glass upside down in the sink to be loaded into the dishwasher when she got home.
Cody had been true to his word since they’d agreed to the three dates, so the one kiss was all they’d shared. As she walked to the door, she touched her lips, thinking about how soft his had felt against hers. She knew she wasn’t ready for the kind of relationship he wanted, but she didn’t want to let him go either.
She opened the door wide. “Hi there.” Considering how she felt, Amber was surprised her voice was as calm as it was.
He was leaning against the doorjamb smiling at her. His smiles turned her insides into a mass of wriggling nerves. “Are you ready?”
Cody Page 2
