Undeniably Yours (4 page)

Regardless of all that, he'd still been her father, the only parent she'd had, and she'd loved him. Meg wasn't certain if he'd loved her back, but at the very least he'd protected her. According to their deal, he'd even sheltered her from Cole Oil.

My father's gone
.

In response, she could almost sense the presence of the Holy Spirit drawing near, comforting, reminding her that even though she'd lost William Cole, God remained.

I don't know what to do, Lord. I can't see my way forward. Please show me.

She'd been a lukewarm Christian for most of her life. But after the devastation she'd gone through five years ago, she'd thrown herself on God's mercy and discovered that He had a lot of grace to offer. Enough even for her. Meg understood with absolute certainty that whatever strength she possessed came from Him. On the days when she hadn't wanted to get out of bed in the morning, He'd rescued her.

She'd been doing so much better, feeling so much stronger and more sure of herself in recent years. Then her father had died, and now she was falling again.

A worried Christian. That defined her current state. Worried. Christian. Two words that shouldn't have gone together. An oxymoron.

She knew very well that God was holding out His hands to her through this situation, asking her to trust Him completely. She was trying! But she must not be doing it right. He hadn't given her a spirit of fear. This wasn't how He intended her to be. And yet here she was anyway: a worried Christian overcome with anxiety.

“I'm so sorry,” she breathed, then mopped at her face with a paper towel.

Her cell phone rang. When she saw Sadie Jo's name on the screen, she answered immediately. Sadie Jo's sweet and reassuring voice flowed through the line. She'd called to check on Meg and offer support.

Meg squeezed the phone, thankful. God had led her through
rough patches exactly this way countless times in the past. Just when she was about to have a meltdown, a neighbor would knock on her door, a friend would invite her out for dinner, a loved one would call.

Then and now she recognized these small interventions for exactly what they were: God throwing her a lifeline through the words and hands of His people.

J
ust what she didn't need to cap off her first week as Mistress of Whispering Creek and Head Know-Nothing at Cole Oil: a visit to the horse farm she'd vowed to shut down.

Yippee!

Meg arrived at the farm on Friday afternoon ten minutes early. Even so, she found Bo waiting outside for her, standing alone in the little car park area wearing jeans, boots, and a pale blue cowboy-cut shirt. The interlocking initials
WCH
for Whispering Creek Horses had been embroidered in tan thread on his shirt's pocket.

Meg winced inwardly. Apparently the people out here even had their own shirts.

He held her door open for her as she got out. “How are you?”

Nutty. “Fine.”

“I'm glad you made it. Thanks for coming.”

“Sure.” The nervousness and pressures of the week had frazzled her badly. She longed to sink into a hot bubble bath, chomp antacids, and drown her sorrows in the biography of Claude Monet she was reading. She'd seriously toyed with the idea of having her assistant call Bo and cancel. But in the end,
she hadn't gone that route because, very plainly, she'd told him she'd come. “So this is the horse farm.”

“This is it. One of our barns, anyway.”

Meg paused, shielding her eyes so that she could take in the details of the place. There'd always been a barn on this site, and her father had always kept horses here for him and his buddies to ride. But the structure that stretched across the land in front of her—redbrick with white trim and a gabled gray metal roof—was entirely new. A short wing that held the front double doors protruded toward them from the center. Otherwise, the structure formed a long east-west rectangle. “How many barns are there?”

“Five.”

She glanced at him with surprise. “All this large?”

“Yeah. They're spread out around the property so we can keep the horses separate.”

Dutch doors evenly marked the front of the barn. The upper sections of some of them hung open. Three horses had stuck their heads through and were regarding them with interest.

As they approached the entry, tall-reaching trees shaded their progress. Blue pansies lined the base of the barn and also surrounded the two posts that supported a white sign that read
Whispering Creek Horses
in tan letters. Like everything her father had touched, the horse farm oozed quality.

“This barn here,” Bo stated, “holds broodmares.”

“I see,” she said, though she wasn't precisely certain what that meant. “How many acres does the entire farm take up?”

“Over four hundred.”

Another surprise. She hadn't realized that her father had given up a third of his ranch to the farm.

Bo held open one of the front doors for her. She passed
through, grateful that she'd stopped at the house to change. She'd decided on an ivory wraparound sweater and a pair of skinny jeans that tucked into her wedge-heeled suede boots. She'd have felt laughably overdressed touring this place in her suit and heels.

The interior of the building welcomed her with the smell of hay, horses, and leather. When they arrived at the main corridor that ran the length of the building, she glanced to her right and came to a halt, startled.

At least twenty people stood quietly in a semicircle, all looking at her, all wearing light blue shirts that matched the one Bo had on. Her emotions veered downhill. These were the people she'd fired.
Would fire
in six months.

“Everyone,” Bo said, “this is Megan Cole.”

They answered with murmured greetings.

“Hello.” Meg pasted on a smile and tried not to fidget over being the center of so much attention and, worse, the person who'd axed their jobs.

“Do you mind if I take you around and introduce you?” Bo asked.

She wanted to say “Yes!” and book it out the nearest door. “Not at all.”

Bo led her to the closest person. “This is my brother Jake. He's the trainer here.”

Jake took off his cowboy hat and shook Meg's hand with a firm, muscled grip. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too.” Jake and Bo shared similarities. Same height, same work-hardened body, same shade of brown hair, though Jake's was longer. But they also shared a glaring difference. Jake's face held a prominent scar that started at the slope of his nose, ran along his cheekbone, then curled under his jaw. Meg made an effort to look him in the eye while pretending not to notice it.

Bo guided her along, telling her each person's job title. He used terms like
rotating man
,
groom
,
yearling manager
, and
night man
. His employees, four women and the rest men, ranged from a sweet elderly gentleman who looked like he ought to be spending his days in a convalescent home, to a teenage boy who must have come straight over in his mom's car after sixth
period.

She hadn't felt good about firing these people to begin with. She felt considerably less good about it now that she could attach faces and names to each of them. These people had real lives, and she knew that they counted on real paychecks.

Despite that they must be harboring caution, disappointment, or downright hostility toward her, every one of them welcomed her with courtesy.

When Meg had met the final person, the room fell silent. They watched her, waiting, as if they expected her to say something.

Why
had she agreed to visit? Goodness, what a mistake. “Ah, thank you for having me for a visit this afternoon. I appreciate you taking the time out of your schedule to come and meet me. This is a beautiful facility, and it's clear that you all take a lot of pride in it, which you should.”

The air writhed with hidden resentments.

Meg's stomach gnawed. “I . . . I know my father would want me to express gratitude to you on his behalf. As all of you know, he was very passionate about his horses. So thank you . . . for all you've done.”

More painful silence.

“That's it,” Bo said to the group. “Thanks. Y'all can return to work.”

As his employees moved off, Bo drew Meg over to one of the stalls.

“Are the shirts some kind of uniform?” she asked in a low voice.

His lips quirked. “No, we only wear them on special occasions. Like when a potential buyer comes to look at a horse.”

“You wore them for me today?”

“Of course.”

“Why?”

“Because having you visit is a special occasion for us.”

Her forehead furrowed. Surely not so special that it merited assembling all the employees in their matching shirts? He must have known that meeting the staff would tug at her heartstrings and fill her with guilt. “Did . . .” She re-cinched the tie of her sweater and straightened to her full height. “Did you ask me to come out here today so that you could try to change my mind about closing the farm? Because I'm planning to close it down, exactly as we agreed.”

“I know you are.”

“I don't want to give you any false hopes.”

“You're not giving me false hopes. All you've agreed to is a tour.”

“Exactly.”

“So right now, I'm just glad for the chance to give you a tour.”

For a long moment, she considered him, trying hard to discern his motives.

Bo looked back at her squarely, kindly. His lips curved up a little on one side.

Was he manipulating her? Meg couldn't tell. Her intuition read honesty and genuine goodness in him. But she'd been wrong about people in the past, and it would be naïve of her to think Bo had anything but his own self-interests at heart.

“Ready to see some horses?”

After a brief hesitation, she nodded.

Just as he'd done with his staff, Bo introduced her to the horses, sharing information and a story about each one. Even Meg could recognize how exquisite they were. Finely boned, shining clean, muscled, and well proportioned.

When they came to the far end of the building, Bo grabbed a straw Stetson off a peg, then ushered her through the door. Outside, several white-painted fences surrounded grass fields. “How large are these?” Meg asked.

“These paddocks are about two and a half acres each.”

“And beyond them?” She gestured to another fenced area that followed the contours of the land into the distance.

“That's a thirty-acre pasture.” He donned his hat one-handed, settling it easily into place.

She followed him to a section of fence. They stood next to each other, separated by a respectful amount of space.

Inside the paddock, two mother horses grazed, their babies moving closely alongside. “Oh,” Meg whispered. The babies were so small and sweet, with their overlong legs, dainty little faces, and manes and tails made up of more fluff than substance. Just looking at them caused tears to lodge in her throat. She'd always been sentimental, even at the best of times.

“You okay?” Bo asked.

“Thank you, yes. They're adorable. That's all.” She sniffed and ran her fingers under her eyes. “How old are they?”

“About two months.”

She could feel his gaze. She glanced at him and found him watching her with concern from beneath the brim of his hat.

“I'm all right,” she assured him. One more sniff and she had herself back in order. “I do this a lot. Really, nothing to worry about.”

“Maybe I ought to start carrying tissues.”

“That'd be convenient.” She smiled at him, and he smiled back, looking as if he belonged in these surroundings every bit as much as the hills and the wildflowers. “If I had to guess, I'd say you're from around here.”

“What makes you think so?”

She looked at him dubiously. Every inch of him, from the style of his Stetson to his roper boots, read “Texas Cowboy” to her. “I can just tell.”

He glanced down at himself, then back at her.

“Am I right?” she asked. “Were you raised in Holley?”

“Yes.”

“Have you lived here your whole life?”

“Before coming to Whispering Creek I worked at a horse farm in Kentucky for four years.”

“My father stole you from the competition?”

“Something like that.”

“Sounds like him.” One of the baby horses executed a frolicking jump. “And before Kentucky?”

“I was in the Marines.”

“Okay, sure.” Meg tried to look natural, as if she knew lots of people in the military, when in fact she knew zero. “Where were you stationed?”

“In California when I was in the States.”

“And overseas?”

“I did tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

She could easily believe it. Bo emanated confidence and capability. It didn't stretch her imagination at all to envision him as a soldier dressed in camouflage, serving the United States in far away and dangerous places. “How long did you serve?”

“Six years.”

“And before that?”

“I was in high school.”

“Did you go to Plano East?”

He nodded. “What about you?”

“I went to Hockaday in Dallas. Have you ever heard of it?”

“No.”

“It's a private girls' school.” Which, no doubt, would strike him as snobby.

“You commuted there and back every day?”

“I did.” Her father's driver had ferried her to Hockaday every morning, kindergarten through twelfth grade, crossing over the invisible boundary line between horse country and city suburbs. Sadie Jo had picked her up every afternoon. Meg could still remember how Sadie Jo's car had smelled—like Wrigley's gum.

“I don't recall ever seeing you around Holley,” he said, “when you were younger. Did you spend much time in town?”

“Not much. Sadie Jo, my nanny when I was a child”—something else for him to find snobby— “has a little Victorian house near the square. I spent some time there growing up. And to this day she and I like to eat at that antique store that serves lunch. What's it called?”

If he was put off by her expensive childhood, he didn't show it. “Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle's?”

“Yes. And I go to the barbecue place now and then.”

“Taste of Texas?”

“Right.”

One of the horses neared, and Bo reached out and rested his hand on the horse's nose. He absently rubbed his palm up and down, then fiddled with a strand of mane.

“Oh,” Meg remembered. “And my dad liked that diner near the edge of town.”

“Wayne's.”

“He had breakfast there a lot.”

Bo waited for a few beats. “Is that it?” He gave her a lazy smile, with just a hint of good-natured challenge in it. “Is that all the experience you've got with Holley?”

“That's about it.”

“What about Sonic, Catfish King, Deep in the Heart?”

“No.”

“Sally's Snowcones?”

“No.”

“DQ?” he asked hopefully. “Tell me you've been there.”

“I've never been to the one in Holley. I've stopped at other Dairy Queens, though and, no offense, but I don't think I'm missing much.”

“C'mon,” he chided. “Their chocolate milk shake?”

“I'm not a big ice cream fan.”

“That's sorry.”

She laughed.

Smile lines crinkled around his eyes, making his handsome face even more handsome.

He was surprisingly easy to talk to, this man she'd tried and failed to fire. “It's strange to think that we grew up in the same town but that our experiences were so different, isn't it?”

“It is.” Bo gave the horse a pat on the side of its neck, and it ambled off.

Of course, hardly anyone had grown up like she had. Still, it surprised Meg that she could have been raised in this county and have had
so
little interaction with men like Bo. She was much more familiar with your average wealthy, private-school-educated Dallas man. That breed wore expensive designer clothes, drove Porsches, and could carry their end of a long conversation about wine.