Her Heart for the Asking (Book 1 - TEXAS HEARTS) (5 page)

"But if you're not going to teach me, then
who?"

His eyes lifted to the man who was still
silently standing at the far end of the living room.  She
followed his gaze until her own eyes settled on Beau.

"You're looking at him."

* * *

She couldn’t breathe.
  What was
he thinking?  What was he doing?  Learning all the ins
and outs of the Double T would require her to be in Beau's back
pocket the entire time she was in Texas.

"How long can you stay?"  Hank was
talking in some far away voice.  Had he really asked her to
work with Beau?

She glanced at him, pushing past the sudden
panic that gripped her.  His face was paler than it had been
even a few minutes ago, as if the stress of this conversation alone
had taken years off his life.  But even with its gray color,
his expression was still hopeful.  This was important to him,
for whatever reason, she realized. 
Very
important
.  He wanted it badly enough that her mother
insisted, yet again, that she drop everything and move into
action.

As annoyed as she'd been with her mother's
insistence about coming to Texas, she realized this wasn't her
mother talking.  It was Uncle Hank and Uncle Hank didn't
demand things of her.  Ever.  He asked.  How could
Mandy refuse?

"I'll work something out with Dad.  I'm
sure I can stay as long as you need me to.  I can even work
here and Fed Ex my work to the office.  It isn't a
problem." 

She would make sure it wasn't a
problem.  Oh, her father would give her grief for being gone
so long.  Probably give her that standard lecture about having
to pull her own weight, that he wasn't about to let anyone think he
gave his daughter special privileges just because she was his
daughter.  If he got his gander up, she may even lose her
place in the agency and have to start at the bottom again.  No
one would accuse Damien Morgan of nepotism.

But it was doable and by God, she would do
it. 

"You can count on me," she said
resolutely.

Hank's smile shined bright through his
ghostly face and told of his pleasure.  It also gave the
shadow of a dying man.  She didn't have that much time to
convince Uncle Hank to have surgery.  He was truly coming to
the end. 
Why had they waited so long to tell me?

It broke her heart.  And yet she knew
she was partly to blame for not knowing sooner.  She should
have stayed in touch, she silently admonished herself.  No
matter what happened between her and Beau, she shouldn't have let
her relationship with her aunt and uncle suffer for it. 

It was clear their reunion had taken its
toll on Hank.  She gave him a kiss and left him in the living
room to rest.  As soon as she left his side and pushed through
the screen door to the front porch, anger boiled up inside her like
a pot with a lid on it.

Work side by side with Beau Gentry?
 Every day and every night until. . .when?

What was Uncle Hank thinking? Mandy fumed as
she paced the wide porch.  He knew about her past with
Beau.  He had to have known this would be hard on
her. 

Maybe his health had gone so far that he
wasn't thinking clearly about anything at all, let alone the
surgery or what he was asking of her.

She was stunned.  But not Beau. 
She'd seen his face while Uncle Hank made his request.  And he
wasn't the least bit shocked.

After Mandy paced a worn path up and down
the porch a few times, Beau pushed through the screen door and
stepped outside.

"You knew about this," she accused.

Beau didn't deny it.

"What, don’t you even have the slightest
stab of guilt?  Do you figure you’d used me again to get to my
uncle, as you did all those years ago?  This is my uncle’s
ranch, Beau Gentry.  No matter how much your father wants it,
you don’t have to do his dirty work to get take it from a dying
man."

"I won't even respond to that," Beau
said.  His face was fierce.  The hard line of his jaw
told her she'd hit a nerve.   

Beau stood in front of her, blocking her
from pacing anymore.  "Didn't you hear a thing in there? 
Didn't you see him?  I mean really look at him?"

"Of course I did.  I just can't figure
out what's in this for you?"

His eyebrows furrowed.  "What are you
talking about?"

"You mean to tell me Hank just dreamed this
up all by himself?  You didn't plant this little idea in his
head?"

"No," he said resolutely.  "You ought
to know by now Hank is not a man to be swayed easily."

"He's not himself."

"He's still the same man."

She folded her arms across her chest and
dropped down into the glider, forcefully rocking backward. 
"It seems a little convenient to me.  You being here on the
Double T.  Hank being as sick as he is.  You're in the
perfect position to get what your father couldn't get himself all
these years."

"You couldn't be more wrong," he said. 
"I'm here for one reason and one reason only.  Hank asked me
to come.  He asked for my help.  And whether you want to
be a part of this or not doesn't concern me.  You do what you
have to." 

Beau propped his straw Stetson on his head
and launched himself off the porch, leaving Mandy to swing in the
breeze.

She watched him amble across the barnyard to
the paddock as she'd done hundreds of times that summer they spent
together, wondering if she'd ever known Beau at all.

Maybe he was telling her the truth. 
Regardless of Mike Gentry's influence, Beau seemed to genuinely
care about Hank.  Maybe he'd come back to the Double T for the
very reason he professed.

She sighed, feeling like a complete idiot
for actually being disappointed that she didn't fit into the
equation at all.

She
was
an idiot.  Beau may be a
lot of things, and at one time, she'd accused him of being all of
them, but right now he didn't look like a man who was bent on
stealing this ranch out from under a dying man.  He seemed as
brokenhearted as Hank. 

If Hank could trust Beau, why couldn't
she?

# # #

Chapter Four

Sleep.  Who needs it?  Mandy had
done without sleep so many times before that it had become a normal
part of her existence to be sleep deprived.

In the earlier days of college, she'd pulled
all-nighters to keep her grades up.  More recently, it had
been because she needed to meet a strict deadline at the ad
agency.

But it had been a long time since she'd been
disturbed so badly by the memory of Beau Gentry that she just could
not sleep.  As she toss and turned in her bed it was hard not
to let old ghost creep into the room and remind her of how much
they'd loved each other.  Correction, how much she'd loved
him.  He'd made it clear the day he'd said good-bye that he'd
never really loved her. 

Mandy would have thought sleep would be easy
after working 48 hours straight on the Hill Crest Industries ad
campaign.  She'd allowed herself only an hour or two to sleep
on the small sofa in her office after the people from Hill Crest
Industries left before she hightailed to the airport to catch her
flight to Texas.  She should have slept like the
dead. 

Instead of getting much needed sleep, she'd
watched the shadows from the moonlight stretch across the
room.  And what sleep she had managed to catch last night in
her old room on the second floor had been fitful, filled with
dreams of Beau.

It wasn't the same as when he'd first left
for the rodeo circuit without her.  It was as if something
inside her had died when he left.  Even as angry as she was
with him for his betrayal for saying the things he'd said, she'd
mourned the loss of him.  She'd missed him desperately.

The dreams she'd had last night were
different.  She didn't want to go there and examine what it
all meant.  It was better to keep her distance.  She
wasn't staying in Texas and neither was Beau.  As soon as she
succeeded in convincing Hank to have his surgery both of them would
be going back to their separate lives again.  And that was
just fine with her.

Mandy pulled herself from the twin canopy
bed she'd slept in during her youthful stays at the ranch. 
Corrine had kept her room the same as the last time she'd been
here.  No wonder she still expected her to look nine years old
every time she saw her aunt and uncle.  The ruffled canopy bed
and gold trimmed white dressers looked as though they belonged to
an elementary school girl.  Maybe no matter how much she grew
up, they'd always think of her as the little Philadelphia girl who
learned to ride a pony with ease from a handful of real Texas
cowboys.

She laughed with the memory as she padded to
the 2nd floor bathroom in the hallway with a pair of clean
underwear and some toiletries in her hand.  She knew from all
her years at the Double T that you could count on most days being a
simple routine that never changed.  Breakfast was after most
of the hands had already done a few hours of work.  Aunt
Corrine did most of the cooking in the house and prepared a picnic
lunch for the men to take out on the range if that was where they
were going to be that day.  Many days the hands never bothered
to stop for lunch at all.  When they were driving the herd,
she'd go on ahead and set up a camp so that a meal was hot and
filling when the day was done.

Mandy had heard the stories, but had never
been around for a real cattle drive.  She’d always left to go
back to school.

Downstairs Mandy heard voices and recognized
one as being the housekeeper they'd had for years.  Alice had
always reminded Mandy of the housekeeper from the Brady Bunch
series, except the Double T's Alice was an Apache woman who lived
on the reservation not too far from the Double T.

Uncle Hank, being half Apache himself, had
met Alice while he’d visit his mother who'd lived on the
reservation until she died the year after Mandy starting coming to
the Double T.  He’d met her a few times when Hank had taken
Mandy to the reservation for a Powwow or the Sundance festival.

Alice had a daughter named Sara, who was a
few years older than Mandy.   She would bring Sara to the
ranch to play with Mandy while Alice worked.  Mandy hadn't
thought of Sara in years.  She wondered now how her childhood
friend was doing.  She'd have to make a point of asking Alice
when she went downstairs.

She quickly scrubbed her body clean and
shrugged into a clean pair of blue jeans she'd just purchased for
the trip.  They were crisp and didn't give the way her old
favorite pair had when they were broken in just right.  Once
Mandy started working for her father, she'd tried to develop a
professional appearance.  But she needed something more casual
to wear around the ranch and it had been a while since she'd
relaxed in casual clothes.  It had been a while since she'd
actually relaxed, Mandy suddenly realized.

The smell of sizzling bacon and home fries
drew her downstairs.  In a matter of minutes, the bell would
sound and a herd of cowpokes would come barreling through the
kitchen door for breakfast.  Beau was sure to be one of
them.

After their brief argument on the porch
yesterday, Beau had somehow disappeared for the rest of the
afternoon.  Although she was sure she'd see him at dinner last
night, he hadn't shown.  The empty seat in the dining room was
telling, not only to her, but also to Hank.  Hank didn't utter
a word though.

Beau was sure to be at breakfast this
time.  And most probably at every other meal for however long
she stayed at the Double T.  And she’d have to endure sitting
at the table and facing Beau.  

But she’d do it.  Hank's life was at
stake and until he agreed to have the bypass surgery, she was going
to placate him by working with Beau.

Even if it killed her.

* * *

Mandy had managed to keep her scrambled eggs
down during breakfast.  It was surprisingly easy to eat during
the silence while four cowboys fed than to try to make small
talk. 

Beau had given her nothing more than a
glance, ate quickly and was gone before anyone else. 

An hour later she was nestled in the
downstairs office with the ranch books scattered around her as she
tried to make some sense of them.  The thought of stealing
herself away for some time without having to have Beau watching
over her shoulder sounded heavenly.  And since he'd been the
one to disappear first, Mandy didn't have to feel guilty for
avoiding him.  

But as dedicated as she was to figuring out
the books, she wasn't having much luck sorting through records of
cattle sales and receipts of feed purchases.  Her luck became
worse when Beau found her hideaway and knocked on the door.

"Thought I'd find you in here," he said,
standing in the doorway.

She didn't reply.

"You hiding out in here or is there
something we should be working on that I don't know about?"

She fought the urge to cringe at his
reference to "we".

"Thought I'd get started on some things, get
acquainted with the ranch's activity by looking through the
books."

"That makes for some pretty dry reading," he
said, quirking an irresistible grin that she had to turn away
from.

"Nothing is drier than Statistics and I
managed to end my year with a B+ in college."

"Statistics, huh?" he said, coming into the
room. 

He left the door ajar and she could hear the
sounds of country music from the radio in Aunt Corrine's
studio.  Out the window behind her, the hands were coaxing a
tenacious horse from the trailer into the corral.  Mitch most
likely had returned with the wild horses from the auction he'd gone
to earlier in the week.

"Statistics, numbers and odds, right?"

Mandy nodded.

"What do you suppose the odds would be of us
being here together again?"