Undeniably Yours (12 page)

At last, desperate, she dashed to her car and drove to the horse farm. She
really
wanted to see Bo. She knew, however, that he wouldn't be working on Easter Sunday. Maybe a good thing, since his absence would prevent her from caving on her decision to keep her distance.

Her best hope? That the horses and scenery held some power to relax her, even without him.

She parked at the broodmare barn, then walked to the same spot at the same paddock she'd visited the last time. Blessedly—one of God's small mercies—she found several mothers and babies within.

She wrapped her hands around the top plank of the fence, watched the darling little foals, and tried to absorb the quiet of the setting.
Breathe in for a count of six, Meg, hold for six, breathe out for a count of seven
.

Minutes slid past, one into the next. A chocolate brown foal nudged its mother with its nose. Another mother/baby pair meandered along the rail, stopped to observe her, then moved on. They all looked so enviably content and serene.

Gradually, the burning orange ball of the sun lowered behind the treetops. Meg slid her glasses on, sending the horizon into focus. The sun was going. Going. Almost gone. Gone.

In its wake, the enormous Texas sky blazed with swaths of pale orange, white, and pink. An arrow formation of birds winged their way past, their bodies dark against the backdrop of the sunset.
Look at the birds of the air
, it said in the Bible,
they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

“Amen,” she whispered. If He could manage the horses, the birds, and the nature that surrounded her, then He could manage her life.

God
, she prayed,
I honestly believe that you're on your throne at this very moment. I'm handing over this whole situation with Amber and Stephen to you. Help me to do the right thing and to be brave. Help me, also, to find my place at Cole Oil.
In her heart, she knew she wasn't cut out for the profession set before her. It was all wrong. A terrible fit. And yet duty didn't ask you your opinion, did it?
Show me what I can do there, Lord, that might bring you glory. Show me how to manage my father's fortune, this house, and the people that work here. Most of all, please, Lord . . . please help me manage my anxiety. It's eating at me again—

A twig crunched behind her.

She jerked around to see Bo striding toward her. Instead of his usual cowboy clothing, he wore track pants and a black hooded sweatshirt zipped up the front over a white T-shirt.

Her body—traitor!—reacted the way it had reacted to cute boys when she'd been fifteen years old. Her heart tripped over itself, and her skin flushed with excitement.

His attention honed on her as he approached. “One of the grooms called me and told me you were here.”

“Oh.”

“I was just finishing up at the gym so I thought I'd swing by.”

“You shouldn't have bothered to drive all the way out here on my behalf. It's Easter.”

“It is.” He stopped beside her at the fence and looked into her face with a combination of serious intensity and warmth. “Happy Easter, Meg.”

“Happy Easter.”

He smiled a little, which sent a dimple into his cheek. He had a face that would have suited an old-time Texas Ranger—firm features, determined jawline, placid eyes. A rugged, capable face. Just looking at that face caused the knots of stress in her stomach to loosen. “I don't want you to feel like you have to hang out with me whenever I'm at the farm. Especially not on your day off.”
The lady doth protest too much.

He hefted a muscled shoulder. “I wanted to come. I was worried you'd be out here crying over the foals. Who else was going to bring you tissues if not me?”

Ah, those pesky tissues! She experienced a sudden sentimental and wayward rush of gratitude toward him. She'd been out here alone, trying not to hyperventilate, needing a friend, and he had—very simply—come. There'd be time to worry about her attraction to him later.

“Need any?” he asked. “Tissues?”

“Not at the moment.” Her lips curved.

“Just let me know.” He rested his elbows on the fence. “How was your day?”

“Good. Yours?”

“Good.”

“How'd you spend it?”

“I started off at church.”

“Does your family go to church every Easter?”

“We go every Sunday, year round.”

“You're a Christian.”

“I'm from a small town in Texas.” Self-mocking humor settled into the squint lines near his eyes. “Can't think what else I'd be.”

“You mean other than a gun-toting hick with a backward view of the world?”

His head drew back. He gazed at her, arrested, then burst out laughing.

She laughed with him.

“I'm probably guilty of that, too,” he said. “The gun-toting backwards part.”

“No, I was just kidding. I'm glad to hear you're a Christian, though. I thought as much.”

“Why's that?”

“I could just recognize it in you.” In fact, she often felt like she could identify other believers without being told . . . as if the Holy Spirit in her sensed the Holy Spirit in them. Like attracting like.

“What about you?” he asked. “Did you grow up only going to church on Easter?”

“My father only went with me on Easter and Christmas Eve. Luckily, Sadie Jo took me the rest of the year. I'm from the same small town in Texas that you are, after all.”

“We've covered this ground before. You're not from Holley.”

“Yes I am.”

“No. You're from the same zip code. But a person who's never eaten at our DQ wasn't raised in Holley.”

She grinned. “Okay. Point taken.”

They traded stories about their respective Easter meals, the foods they'd liked and the ones they'd avoided, the quirks of the
extended family members they'd spent their afternoons with. The exterior barn lights flicked on and full darkness descended. She told him about Jayden hunting eggs. He told her about his concerns for his brother Jake, the crazy thing his little sister Dru had said to shock the relatives, and how his family had talked to his brother Ty on speakerphone because Ty was away touring with something called the Bull Riders' Professional
Circuit.

Bo's presence, the hushed beauty of the animals, and their easy conversation sank into Meg like a balm. Culture touted solitary rest as the cure for anxiety. But for her, “the Bo effect” worked far better. His nearness comforted her more than aloneness ever could have. In her twenty-eight years she'd already had enough aloneness to last five lifetimes.

When a groom came to escort the horses into the barn, Bo walked Meg to her car and held her door for her. “I'll bet you're the only person in this county,” he said, “driving around in a Mercedes convertible from the '80s.”

“I'm sure you're right.” She settled into the driver's seat and patted the wheel. “This was my mother's car.” In a sentimental move uncharacteristic of him, her father had held on to the car long after her mother's death. So long, that Meg had asked if she could have it once she'd received her license. She'd been driving it and taking scrupulous care of it ever since. Sitting where her mother had sat, driving the classy little white car her mother had driven, helped her feel connected to a woman she otherwise knew only through photos and the stories of relatives.

“I kind of figured that,” Bo said. “I like it.”

“Thanks. So do I.”

“G'night.” He shut her door.

As she drove down the lane toward the big house with him
following in his truck, she glanced at his headlights in her rearview mirror again and again.

She'd recently attempted to classify him as either someone who was trying to manipulate her, someone who wasn't interested in her romantically, or someone who was interested, but would never act on it. After their time together this evening, she thought that he
might
fall into the latter category.

If he'd come out tonight and made a pass at her, she'd have bolted in terror. But he'd done nothing of the kind. Everything about her time with him just now assured her that while he might be interested in her as a woman, he respected the line between them too much to cross it. She didn't need to put space between them, because Bo himself would see to that. Because of their work relationship, she could count on him to keep things between them honorable and friendly. He had old-fashioned values. He was actually . . . ethical.

She wanted to believe, maybe already did believe, that she could trust him. And if she could trust him, then an internal pang of desire here or there couldn't hurt her
that
much. Could it?

Hanging out with Bo was like peering at a mouth-watering slice of cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory. The slice was beautiful. Intriguing. It filled you with tempting urges. But it was also very bad for you.

So, ultimately, you were glad for the glass case separating you from the cheesecake. The glass kept you from bingeing. The glass kept you safe.

I
n the mood for Oreos and milk?” Meg asked Amber the next evening. Silly question. Because who wasn't—at any time—in the mood for Oreos and milk?

“Sure.” Amber plugged her baby monitor into an outlet on the kitchen countertop and fiddled with the dials.

Meg poured two tall glasses of milk and set them on the granite-topped island in the center of the big house's kitchen. Like Jayden, the kitchen had been put to bed at this hour. Meg had always liked the tidy quiet of it at nighttime, the soft under-cabinet lighting that gave a person the sense that the room was resting after a busy day's effort.

Once she and Amber had settled on the bar stools that lined the island, Meg doled out napkins, then peeled back the flap on a brand-new package of Oreos. The scent of the dark chocolate wafers and soft vanilla centers wafted into the air. She scooted the package toward Amber.

Amber took three, so Meg took three. Better not to let Amber know that she could easily eat six or more at a sitting until they were closer friends. Also, she was working out now. Better for her weight-loss goals, not to mention her acid reflux, if she just ate three.

“I haven't had Oreos and milk since I was a kid,” Amber said.

“Really? I haven't stopped eating them since I was a kid.”

“Should I dunk?”

“Strictly a matter of personal taste.”

Amber dunked.

Meg ate hers regular-style. First bite, second bite, chased with a sip of milk.

“You know . . .” Amber dunked her half-eaten cookie again, causing crumbs to frost the surface of her milk. “We don't have to talk about Stephen if you don't want to, Meg. I mean, thank you for offering, but it's okay.”

“I do want to talk to you about him.” Meg sighed. “It's just hard.”

Amber regarded her sympathetically, then went back to her Oreos.

Amber looked vulnerably young to Meg tonight, in her faded skinny jeans and yellow hoodie. She'd tucked her feet into fuzzy turquoise slippers that had silver crowns stitched onto their tops and pulled her brown-streaked-with-blond hair into another of her messy ponytails.

Since Amber had moved in, the two of them had spent a good deal of time together. Meg suspected that Amber had once been brash and independent, had gone out into the world full of herself, and then been smacked down hard by the realities of life. Her bad decisions had left her without money, without education, and without a father for her child.

Unfortunately, as much as Meg wished it weren't true, everyone—including Amber and herself—had to pay the price of their free will. The two of them had both chosen poorly and paid highly. They'd both come out of their hardships with battered bravery.

“I guess I'll begin at the beginning.” Meg picked up microscopic bits of Oreo with her fingertip. “I met Stephen when I was in college. I thought he was charming.”

“He was.”

“And handsome.”

“
So
handsome, the big jerk.”

“He came from a normal background, which I liked. I'd always wanted to be more like everyone else.” Reminder to self, Meg thought, to beware of charming, good-looking, normal guys. Of which Bo was check, check, check—all three.

“What'd your dad think of him?” Amber asked.

“He had a lot of concerns. As soon as we got engaged, he hired a firm to investigate him.”

“Seriously?”

“The firm couldn't verify everything that Stephen had told me about his past, which made my father suspicious. I wish it had made me suspicious, too, but it didn't. At the time I didn't want to hear or believe anything except that Stephen was perfect. We were married the summer after I graduated. I was twenty-two.”

Amber watched Meg with utter stillness.

Meg released a painful exhale. “It started with one little lie. I didn't think much of it. Then I caught him in more little lies and a few bigger ones. I began to check up on him, and I found out that he was lying to me about his job. Our finances. Where he was at night. Everything.” Meg caught herself nervously spinning her earring back and dropped her hand. “Whenever I tried to confront him about the lies, he'd get angry. Actually, if I stepped out of line in any way, he'd get angry. I'd never, not once, seen him lose his temper when we were dating. But after we were married, it got so bad that the smallest thing would set him off. And he'd just become furious. Horribly furious.”

“I've seen him lose it, too.”

“As the months went by, I realized that all the charm and all the sweetness he'd shown me when we were dating had been an act. The truth was that he didn't actually
feel
any of it. He didn't love me. It had all been a big con to get what he wanted. I've spent hours talking to therapists about him, and based on some of those conversations, I think . . . well, I think he's a sociopath.”

Dead seriousness resounded like a gong through the room. Rightly so. The mind of a sociopath
ought
to terrify. Meg was painfully aware, as Amber must be at this moment, that Amber had had a child with this person. Meg could easily have been in the same predicament. She remembered the dreams she'd once dreamed, back when she'd been in love with Stephen. The hope she'd had that one day they'd have children together. “Basically a sociopath is someone who's completely self-centered and who doesn't feel any guilt or remorse. They have no conscience.”

Amber swallowed audibly. “‘One thing you can't hide is when you're crippled inside.' John Lennon.”

“You didn't know Stephen as long as I did,” Meg said carefully. “But I'd recommend that you do some research on the characteristics of sociopaths, then think back on your time with Stephen. Think whether or not he showed you some of those characteristics. After we were married, Stephen and I lived together for a year. By the time he left, he'd shown me nearly every trait on the list.”

Meg's gaze passed over the glasses of milk with beads of condensation on the outside, across the orderly countertops, and out the window to the gardens aglow with professional lighting. But her heart didn't remain in the cozy kitchen. It traveled back to the crushing despair Stephen had put her through five years
ago. “I can't tell you how much I wish that I'd been smarter, how much I regret that I fell for his act in the first place. But I did, all the way.”

“That's not your fault, Meg.”

It came as a surprising relief to hear Amber say those words, to have someone to relate to after all this time. Meg reached over and gave Amber's hand a squeeze.

Amber returned the pressure. “I fell for it, too. He's like, a really good actor.”

After a moment, they dropped the link of their hands but not the link of their shared empathy.

“Wanna go back to eating cookies?” Amber asked hopefully. “How about we try to put Stephen out of our minds?”

“I'd like to, but I have one more thing I need to tell you.” Meg took a moment to gather up her courage, because this next part was the hardest thing of all for her to admit and something she'd never told anyone else in the world.

“Oh?”

“When I graduated from college, my father gave me two million dollars as a gift.” She knew she simultaneously sounded like the world's worst spoiled little rich girl and an unforgivable braggart.

Amber whistled low, her blue eyes rounding.

“I think it was his way of trying to provide for me, even though I'd already turned down a trust fund. I wanted to live on what Stephen and I made and nothing more.”

Amber's nose wrinkled. “Why?”

“I needed to prove to myself that I could stand on my own two feet.”

“I mean, I needed to prove the same thing to myself when I left home. But I'm not sure I could have turned my back on”—she indicated their surroundings—“all this.”

“Yes, you could have. If all this had left you as empty as it left me.”

“So what happened?”

“I didn't touch the two million dollars. I put it away in a private, separate account just in case of an emergency.”

“Uh-oh,” Amber whispered. “I'm afraid I know where this is going.”

“Stephen stole it all from me. Every dollar.”

The two women looked at each other for a long moment, their expressions stark. “He must have been going through my things, because I'd never told him about that account. Never.”

“I'm
so
sorry. You found out about the money after he left?”

“Yes. About a week after he disappeared, I remembered the account. It gave me a sick feeling in my stomach because I knew what I'd find before I even called the bank.”

Amber shook her head, her expression turning angry. “I can't
believe
he took your money.”

“Once I confirmed it, I knew that he was gone for good. And I knew for sure why he'd pretended to like me in the first place. His relationship with me was never about anything except my father's money.”

“I hate his guts. When I see him I'm going to bean him with my knuckles right here.” Amber indicated the middle of her throat. “Did you send the police after him?”

“I couldn't file criminal charges against him because Texas is a community property state. But I could have brought a civil case against him.”

“Did you?”

“I thought about it. But in the end I didn't because I was too afraid that the media would get ahold of the story. I didn't want everyone knowing what he'd done to me, so I kept silent. I didn't tell my father or anybody else about the money.”

“I'm the first?”

“You're the first.” Meg fiddled with the edge of her napkin. “I can't stand that I let him go free with my money. If I'd held him liable, I'd have slowed him down at least, pushed him off course. He might not have been able to do what he did to you. I apologize, Amber.”

“You don't need to! After all you've done for me, how can I ever be anything but thankful? I don't blame you a bit.”

“If you'd been in the same situation, I bet you'd have prosecuted him. You'd have been braver than I was.”

“No way.”

Moisture fogged Meg's vision. Amber's forgiveness and reassurance poured over her like warm rain. “Thank you for being so gracious.”

Amber rolled her eyes. “Are you kidding me? I'm the one that should be thanking you. Here.” She passed Meg a fresh napkin and Meg used it to stem the flow of tears. “So what did you tell people,” Amber asked, “back when Stephen left?”

“I simply told them that Stephen and I had separated. And then, a year to the day after he left, I filed for divorce.”

“Why'd you wait a year?”

“Because I filed on the grounds of abandonment, and to do that in Texas, you have to wait that long. It was a hard year.” Growing up she'd been shy and sensitive, but mentally stable. After Stephen, soul-deep betrayal, desolation, and panic attacks had descended on her like vultures. She'd barely managed to hold herself together. “I was still living in Houston, carrying around his last name, having to answer all kinds of questions from friends and family. Once I got the divorce, I took back my old name and moved to Tulsa for a new job and just . . . just started over.”

“Well, good for you.”

Meg lifted a shoulder. “I wanted to tell you all this so that you'll know everything I know when you decide whether or not you want to find Stephen.”

“Can I think a little longer about what I want to do next?”

“Sure.”

“I say we finish our Oreos.”

“Agreed.”

Amber got busy dunking, and Meg got busy chewing. What do you know? Food tasted better after you'd cleared your conscience by dumping all your revelations.

“I can actually eat more than three Oreos,” Amber confided.

“You know what?” Meg smiled. “So can I.”

It took Amber two days to make up her mind about Stephen.

“So,” Amber said to Meg on Wednesday evening over the phone, “I've been thinking a lot, trying to decide what to do about Stephen. I'm pretty sure I've made up my mind.”

When her cell phone rang, Meg had been treating herself to a bath brimming with rose-scented bubbles. “Hold on a sec,” Meg said, leaning out of the water, afraid of dropping the phone and electrocuting herself. She closed her eyes, cupped her forehead with her free hand, and braced herself for bad news. “Okay. Go ahead.”

“I just have to find him.”

Stephen
. Meg's mind reeled at the thought of searching him out. It made her feel like a person taking part in a plan to walk up to a sleeping beehive and split it open with a carving knife. At least she could find comfort in knowing that she'd shared her secrets with Amber. Amber had been given all the information
she needed to make an educated decision about whether or not to hunt out the beehive with the carving knife.