Her Heart for the Asking (Book 1 - TEXAS HEARTS) (14 page)

When he reached the kitchen door, he saw
Mandy leaning her hip against the counter with her back to him.

"It's been so crazy, Dad, with Hank's
surgery and all.  I haven't even had a chance to unpack my
sketch pad much less work on any of the ideas I've had," she
said.

He waited at the doorway, not wanting to
listen in on the conversation, but needing to hear.  As much
as he dreaded the inevitable, he needed to hear her say the
words.

"I'm sorry you couldn't reach me. 
I...no, I can charge the cell phone tonight so you can reach me
directly.  If I work on some sketches tonight, I can have them
out to you by tomorrow afternoon the earliest." 

There was a moment of silence while she
listened to the person on the other end of the phone.  Beau
could only hear his heart beating in his chest and the creek of the
floorboard under his bare feet.

"If all goes well, I should be back in the
office next Monday.  Tuesday the latest.  But that's the
best I can do.  I want..."

Back to the office.  The words echoed
in Beau's head.  Mandy was going back to Philadelphia. 
It shouldn't have thrown him as much as it did.  He'd known
all along she would be going back to her old life and he'd be going
back to the circuit. 

Funny how the thought of packing his things
and throwing them into his pickup to head out on the road didn't
appeal to him quite the same way it had when he'd first come back
to Steerage Rock.  He'd forgotten what it was like to sleep in
the same bed every night, wake up looking at the sun coming through
the window and bouncing off the same walls and eating breakfast at
the same table. 

There was a time he'd thought that was
boring, that he couldn't live his life tied to the Silverado Cattle
Company.  And maybe that was still true.  He hadn't
mended fences with his father since he'd come home, although he'd
had ample opportunity to just drive over and say his peace.

Beau hadn't been bored at the Double
T.  Here he'd found a kind of peace and contentment that had
been missing from his life.  Sure, he missed rodeo in a bad
way, but he'd been missing something else just as important for the
last eight years.  Something he'd found again being back in
Texas at the Double T.  Being back with Mandy.

But she wasn't staying.  And pretty
soon, no matter if he decided to forget about the World
Championship and stay on to help Hank, she'd still be gone.

Beau leaned his shoulder against the
doorjamb, watching Mandy fiddle with a long lock of her blond hair,
watching how the light from the small French lamp by the telephone
changed her hair all sorts of golden colors.  And wondering
how on earth he was going to be able to live without seeing her
smiling face every day.

He reached his hand up and rubbed the spot
in the center of his chest where his heart squeezed.  He ached
for what he was about to lose.  But there was nothing he could
do to stop it.

Mandy hung up the phone and he immediately
stiffened.  He had the vague feeling he wasn't going to like
hearing what came next.

When she turned around, her face said it
all.  Her smile was so bright and radiant it stole his breath
away.  He couldn't breathe.

"We got the account!" she said, running to
him and throwing her arms around his neck.  "Hill Crest
Industries loved my presentation."

"Congratulations.  That's wonderful,"
he said, trying to keep his voice steady, not wanting to steal away
any of her excitement.

"They want me to re-do some of the aspects
of the campaign, but here's the best part, they want me to lead the
account.  Can you believe it?  You should have heard my
father on the phone just now."

"He must be really proud of you," he said,
forcing himself to smile.

"Yeah, he is."

She kissed him square on the lips and he
kissed her back.  Her lips were soft and moist.  He drank
in all that he could, feeling her soft body pressed against his,
breathing in all her life and excitement.  All the while,
trying to feel it himself. 

But try as he may, he couldn't. 

Mandy finally pulled away and sighed. 
"I have a lot of work to do tonight.  Dad wants some new
sketches and I haven't done anything at all in days."

Beau's spirit plummeted.  "You're going
to work now?"

"I have to.  I need to get something to
him by tomorrow afternoon."

She hadn't had to tell him that part. 
He knew from hearing her end of the conversation and figured she'd
probably be working tonight to get it all done.  He squashed
down that selfish feeling of wanting to hold her all night like
they had before the phone rang, knowing that he wouldn't be now
that she would be working.

Mandy went up on her tiptoes and kissed his
cheek.  "I don't want to disturb your sleep, so I'll go
upstairs to work.  I know you must be tired after today."

"So are you."

She shook her head.  "Not
anymore.  I couldn't sleep now if I tried."

Beau pushed her rumbled hair away from her
face with both hands.  "I'm going to go back to the
bunkhouse.  If I'm here with you, I'm liable to do everything
in my power to drag your attention away from what you're
doing."

She smiled sheepishly.

"I don't want you to leave--"  She
caught herself, as if saying the words out loud made her see that
leaving the Double T was imminent for both of them.

Beau gathered up all the strength could,
trying to keep the desperation he felt from creeping into his
voice.  It wasn't fair to Mandy. 

"I want to hold you in my arms and kiss you
again, Mandy.  And I don't want to stop.  So if you're
strong enough to keep your mind on your sketches while I'm doing
that, then sure--"

"I see your point."  She bent her head
and gave him a coy grin.

He kissed her forehead.  "Sleep in
tomorrow morning.  I can see to breakfast for the hands. 
I don't think Corrine will mind if me and Mitch have at it in the
kitchen while you get some rest."

Giggling, she said, "Alice might mind,
though."

Beau left her then, not bothering to look
back.  He'd only end up making a fool of himself by dragging
her into his arms and kissing her again. 

When he stepped off the porch, he saw the
light in her room was already on.  It would probably remain on
all night.  Glancing across the yard at the bunkhouse, he saw
the lights were still glowing there as well.  Another poker
game no doubt. 

Beau didn't want to play poker.  He
didn't want to be with anyone right now.  Unsettled, he tried
to think back on the times when he was younger, when he felt so
dejected when his dad pushed him away.  He and his brothers
always took off to the cabin in the hills.  Except this time,
Beau knew that wouldn't rid him of this feeling of longing he had,
this sudden feeling of loneliness invading his senses.  It
would only remind him about Mandy and how much he wanted her in his
life.

Instead of turning in as he should have, he
climbed into his pickup, needing something to do other than walk
over to the bunkhouse and crawl into a cold bed alone.  He
needed to get away by himself for a while.  Every broken man
needed a night of torture once in a while and this would be
his.  He'd head out to the hills where memories were abundant
and painful at a time like this.  And he'd drown himself good
and deep in them.

Something caught the corner of his eye as he
went to shift the truck into gear.  A slice of moonlight shone
into the cab and reflected off something on the floor.  He
reached down and gripped the small pearl comb he'd pulled from
Mandy's hair the other day when he'd kissed her again for the first
time.

Memories of their time alone in the hills
invaded his mind.  Staring long and hard at the comb, he
gripped it in his hand until its teeth bit into his palm.  The
door to the house was still open.  He could easily slip in and
place it on the table for Mandy to see in the morning.  He
opened the glove compartment, and brushing his thumb along the
ridges of the comb one more time, he tucked it inside.  

Mandy was leaving Steerage Rock in a few
days.  All he had was a pearl comb to hold on to.

Beau gunned the engine and headed for the
hills.

* * *

Mandy heard the sound of truck tires
spitting gravel outside.  Lifting her bedroom curtains back,
she watched the red taillights of Beau's truck pass the bunkhouse
and head up the narrow road leading to the hills.  She let the
curtain fall back into place.

She hadn't wanted Beau to leave.  The
phone call from her father was worse than awful in the timing
department.  But then, she and Beau never had timing on their
side.  He'd said he'd had no other choice since he wasn't able
to reach her by cell phone.  Still, she had to wonder why her
father had chosen tonight of all nights to call the ranch instead
of waiting until the morning.

Probably because he knew Hank wouldn't be
here, she decided as she pushed herself away from the
window. 

She had to get to work.  Despite the
adrenaline rush from hearing the news from her father, she was
exhausted.  She wished Beau were still here.  Oh, what
she wouldn't do to curl up in his arms again.

As she pulled her sketchpad out of her bag,
she realized it was probably for the best.  Monday or Tuesday,
she'd told her father.  It was going to come quick. 
Probably faster than she wanted it to, despite her wanting to plant
herself into her old life in Philadelphia again.

Mandy was still toiling over a sketch when
she heard Beau's truck pull in sometime the next morning.  He
climbed out of the truck, looking worse for the wear.

She couldn't help but sigh.

Monday would come much too soon.

# # #

Chapter Eleven

Hank's healing was good and quick to all
their relief.  Color had returned to his face almost
immediately and the ghost that threatened to take him away from all
those that loved him had disappeared.  Within a matter of
days, he was coming home.

Mandy had called her father and told him she
didn't feel comfortable leaving until she knew Hank was fully out
of the woods.  She didn't tell him or her mother about the
conversation she'd had with Hank about him being her biological
father.  Some secrets needed to be kept and this one was hers
to keep with Hank. 

She'd decided it would only hurt her father
more to know she'd learned the truth.  Make him think he'd
lost her love as a daughter, when in fact, nothing had really
changed.  She was always going to think of Damien Morgan as
her dad.  She loved him, despite all the hard times they'd
had.  Maybe even because of them.

In true style, her father hemmed and hawed
about her delayed return, but in the end took her suggestion to
continue to overnight any sketches she worked on.  The work
kept her from having to spend too much time with Beau and face the
inevitable conversation about their growing feelings for each
other.  And their eventual parting.

She didn't want to go there.  Didn't
want to have to relive the same pain she'd felt the last time she'd
left Texas.  She was glad to know she had her work to throw
herself into to keep the memories at bay.

The night before she was due to leave she'd
just finished booking her flight home when she found Beau.  By
the look on his face when she came out on the porch, Mandy knew
Beau already figured out what she come to tell him.

The moon was bright, filling every space of
the porch.  Mandy could see ever fine line on his face to the
slight crease in his cotton shirt.

"I just got off the phone with my travel
agent," she said.

"You going somewhere?"

His attempt at sarcasm sliced through
her.  "Beau, you knew this day was coming."

He was silent for a minute.  "Yeah," he
said quietly.

"It's good to have Uncle Hank home
again.  From what his doctor says, as long as he doesn't
overdue things and continues his therapy, he'll make a full
recovery.  We've done what we've come back to do so there's no
reason to stay."

A cloud of disappointment masked his face
and she fought to see past it.  Wished even more she didn't
have to feel it herself. 

"I guess not."

"You must be ready to get back on the road
again, huh?"

"Yeah," he said tightly.

Her shoulders sagged from the weight of it
all.  "Don't be like this, Beau."

He looked at her directly.  "You want
me to make it easy for you?  I'm not good at good-byes."

"That's not the way I remember it."

"It wasn't easy for me to leave you,
Mandy."

"It's not easy now.  For either of us,"
she said looking away from his face, at the floorboards, the
glider, the porch rail.  Anything but his handsome face in the
moonlight.

"Look, I know this is what we planned to do
when we came back to the Double T.  No one more than me wanted
to get Hank to have his surgery and be back out the door
again.  But hasn't anything between us changed things for
you?"

"Of course it has.  So much of this
has.  I can't ever think of the Double T the same as I did
before I came here two weeks ago."

"And you're still leaving."

"How can it be any different between us,
Beau?  You said yourself I'm not the kind of woman to go
roaming the country.  And I realized you're right.  I'm a
lot like my mother that way."

She reached up and touched the light stubble
on his chin, feeling the tension in his jaw from pent up
emotion.  She was feeling it, too.  Oh, how she
wished...

"My life is back in Philadelphia. 
After you left for the rodeo circuit, after all those dreams we'd
talked about...  Well, I had to go on with my life.  I
had to forget about all that and figure out how to build my life
without you.  And I did that, Beau.  You were
right.  I was just a kid falling in love for the first
time.  I would have followed you to the ends of the earth like
a stray puppy, but eventually it wouldn't have worked.  If you
let yourself be honest, you'll see that it wouldn't work that way
now.  I'm not a rambling cowgirl.  I never was.  It
wouldn't make me happy."