Cody (3 page)

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 nodded, 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,
right?

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?”

She nodded and stepped out
onto the doorstep with him, turning to lock the door. She didn’t
always lock it, but her foreman was gone this evening as well, and
she thought it would be best.

Followings him out to his
truck, she climbed into the passenger side buckling her seat belt
automatically. “Have you heard anything from the body shop about my
truck?”

He put the truck in drive
and nodded. “The truck is totaled. There’s nothing they can
do.”

She sighed and took a deep
breath. There went the idea of paying off the ranch early. She
could get a dependable second-hand truck, but it was going to wipe
out most of her savings. “Well, darn. That’s going to eat up all my
savings.”