Cowboy Comes Back / The Cowboy's Convenient Bride: Cowboy Comes Back / The Cowboy's Convenient Bride. Wendy Warren
Cowboy Comes Back / The Cowboy's Convenient Bride: Cowboy Comes Back / The Cowboy's Convenient Bride
glasses.
“I’m sorry,” Libby said quietly. No other words followed.
Kade swallowed and then gave his head one sad shake before turning his horse around on the trail. When his knee came even with Libby’s, he met her eyes. Yeah, she felt for him.
“He probably had a better life out here than he’d have had with my old man,” Kade said. And it was true. The old man never would have sold Blue, since the stud had impeccable breeding and he could have gotten some healthy stud fees out him, totally ignoring the fact that the stud had been a gift to Kade from his grandfather just before he’d passed away.
“No doubt,” she said impassively.
It would have been better to make this discovery alone, but if someone had to be with him, he was glad it was Libby. “Let’s go,” he said.
They made their way back down the trail, and now that the horses sensed they were heading for the trailer, they picked up their pace.
It’s the way it has to be. It’s the way life ends for a stallion in the wild. Pushed away from his herd by a younger horse. Blue had undoubtedly done the same to the herd’s previous stallion.
But logic and common sense didn’t ease the picture of Blue going down and then limping after the herd. Kade doubted anything would.
LIBBY RECOGNIZED THE effort Kade was putting into keeping his face expressionless. Matter-of-fact. But the sixteen-year-old kid in him, the one who’d loved this horse so much that he’d set him free, had to be dying inside right now.
The ride back took forever, despite the horses’ faster gaits, and Libby was relieved to see the truck and trailer sitting on the road below when they came over the final ridge.
Almost over. Duty almost done. And then she could go back to her place and get on with her life. She had problems of her own to sort out. Kade wasn’t one of them. And except in a professional capacity, neither was Blue. She couldn’t do a thing for either of them.
It was a long drive home. They were both tired and Kade remained quiet. Preoccupied. Neither of them spoke until he pulled into the driveway.
Kade turned off the ignition and then once again Libby said, “Sorry about Blue.”
“I knew what I was getting into when I decided to find him.”
He might have known, but he hadn’t been prepared.
Neither of them made a move to get out of the truck. Kade leaned his elbow against the door, propping his head on his hand as he stared at the sorry old house.
“What now, Kade?” Libby asked softly. She’d thought he’d talk about Blue, but he didn’t.
“I’m selling as soon as I get it into some kind of selling shape.”
Good. She was almost ashamed of the thought. Almost. But it would make her life so much easier if he just left. “Why not sell it as is? There’s a market.”
“I have to get as much out of it as I can.” He continued to stare at the house, his expression troubled, as if he expected his dad to come bursting out of it at any moment.
Libby opened the truck door, but she didn’t climb out. “Because of the IRS?” She’d heard the rumor that he was stone broke because of back taxes. And even though it was none of her business she couldn’t help but wonder what he’d done with all his money, why he hadn’t had enough to pay his taxes. Had he gambled his money away? Drunk it away? Did his ex-wife have most of it?
She wasn’t going to ask.
“I settled that debt, but I had to sell almost everything I owned. Now I need enough money to tide me over while I get some job training. Apparently there’s not a lot of call for washed-up rodeo cowboys in today’s job market.”
Divorced, broke and unskilled. Quite a résumé.
“Has anything gone right for you?” Libby asked without thinking.
“Yeah.” He glanced up at her then, his expression surprisingly intense. She’d seen that look before, couldn’t believe she was seeing it now, and tried to convince herself she wasn’t by playing it cool.
“What’s that?”
“You’re not married.”
It took Libby a moment to assure herself she’d heard correctly. She pulled in a deep breath. “There will never be anything between us, Kade. I mean it.”
“I know you do.”
“Then you’d better damned well believe me.”
“Oh, trust me, Lib. I do.”
She didn’t believe him. Not when he was wearing his determined face, the one he’d worn whenever he was facing a particularly challenging bronc.
She gave him a long hard stare before saying what was in her heart. “I might feel for you, Kade, but the very last thing I will ever do in this life is trust you.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
YOU’RE NOT MARRIED. Kade had no idea why he’d said that, but it was true. He was glad Libby wasn’t married. That didn’t mean he thought he had a chance with her—it had been a flat-ass stupid thing to say and now she had her back up again, just when it had looked as if they might be on the healing road.
But deep down, maybe he wanted her to have her back up. Maybe he preferred that to indifference.
No maybe about it. He did prefer it to indifference.
Well, Libby had been anything but indifferent when she left today. She’d been steamed and had left no illusions to the contrary. It had taken her almost three minutes to unload her horse from his trailer, load the mare into her own and drive away.
And as he thought about it, Kade realized he wasn’t all that unhappy about saying what he’d said. Sometimes a guy had to speak from the heart.
YOU’RE NOT MARRIED.
One whole day had passed and Libby was still pissed off that Kade had said such a thing. She frowned down at the industrial-gray floor tiles in the break room.
“Ahem.” Stephen got up from the long table where he’d been eating his lunch and tossed his wadded-up paper bag in the trash. “What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?”
“You seem, oh, I don’t know, preoccupied?”
Libby frowned. “Why do you say that?”
“You’ve been standing there stirring your coffee for about five minutes, staring at the floor.”
“So?”
He pointed at her cup. “You didn’t put anything in your coffee to stir.”
Libby looked down. Sure enough. No creamer. “Old habits,” she said, gamely sipping the coffee black and somehow managing not to make a face. She hated coffee without cream.
“You gave up creamer?” Stephen asked dubiously.
“Too much palm oil.”
“Right.” Stephen boosted himself onto the counter, the backs of his boots clunking on the cabinet doors.
Libby gave him a narrow-eyed appraisal. “I’ll bet there’s something in the rule book about that. I just can’t believe having your butt on the counter is correct protocol.”
“Yeah? Well, Queenie can—”
A door opened and closed out in the hall and Stephen’s mouth snapped shut. Libby smirked at him as he got off the counter.
“On second thought, it’s not worth crossing her.”
“I hear you,” Libby said, although she believed that crossing