Montana Hearts: Her Weekend Wrangler (20 page)

“Oh, come on now,” he insisted. “My guest ranch is as good as Bree’s.”

Ryan jumped to his feet. “They said no.”

“I won’t take no for an answer,”
Merle barked, his expression twisting into a furious knot. He lunged forward, but Ryan was ready for him.

So was the mare.

After Ryan landed a punch that sent the man flying toward the cross-­ties, the mare snapped her head around and bit him. Apparently she’d thought the guy landed one step too close to her filly. And of course, Merle wasn’t wearing any lavender.

“Ow!”
Merle yelled,
grabbing his injured shoulder with one hand and pointing to his chin with his other. “You want a real fight? C’mon, lay another one on me. Right here.”

Ryan shook his head in disgust. “Owens,” he said, “your boxing days are
over
.”

“That’s right,” Bo Tanner’s deep voice thundered.

Ryan glanced behind him and grinned. Not only his dad but all three of his brothers stood in a straight
line across the end of the aisle, ready to assist Merle out the door.

Chapter Thirteen

B
REE SLAMMED DOWN
the phone and went into the kitchen where she could hear her entire family arguing. “What’s going on?” she demanded, searching the faces of her parents, grandma, siblings, and wee little niece. “We’ve had ten phone calls this morning from different families canceling their reservations.
Ten!
Has something happened that I don’t know about?”

“Yesterday was Father’s Day,” her dad grumbled.

“And you spent most of it at the hospital getting new X-­rays of your leg,” Bree reminded him. “We agreed we were going to celebrate today.”

“You call this a celebration?” her father demanded.

Ma picked up the local newspaper from the counter and held it up. “Have you seen this?”

Grandma tried to grab the paper away. “No. Don’t show
her!”

Too late. Bree recognized Ryan at once. In a large photo on the front page. Lying in the hay. Surrounded by the three women from Iridescent Beauty, their hands on his arms and chest.

She stepped forward and took the paper from her mother’s hands. The bold headline read,
Horsin’ Around with Fillies.
Bree glanced back at the photo. Yes, Morning Glory stood behind them, but wasn’t the
main focus.

“The article is
horrible
,” Ma said, her voice grave. “It says Ryan enjoys wrangling our female guests more than cows and horses.”

Luke nodded. “And someone hacked in and posted the article on the Collins Country Cabins website.”

“He’s ruined our reputation,” Delaney cried, her eyes glistening.

“That would explain . . . why one family who canceled . . . said our ranch
is no longer respectable,” Bree choked out, her gaze unable to leave the paper.

Only two days before, Ryan had said,
“I love you.”
Now here he was, caught rolling around in the hay with the CEOs!

“You should have never hired Ryan Tanner to be our weekend wrangler,” her father grumbled. “Look at that photo—­the women are fawning all over him.”

“You think this is
my
fault?” Bree moved
closer to Luke’s side. “Dad,
you
were the one who was fawning all over Ryan when I hired him. None of us knew this would happen.”

“Didn’t you?” Ma challenged. “Ryan’s always been a flirt. What did you expect?”

“He’s not a flirt,” Grandma argued. “He’s just friendly.”

“A little
too
friendly,” Bree’s father muttered.

Bree’s stomach took a turn for the worse, and leaving the paper
behind, she ran from the room, fearing she might be sick. She wanted to believe Ryan was innocent, that he had some kind of plausible explanation for why he’d be lying in the hay with those women. But her mind kept flashing memories from the past over and over and over again.

And in every single one of them Ryan was surrounded by other women.

R
YAN LEANED HIS
arms over the top rail of the
wooden fence and watched Morning Glory drift farther away from her mother. Thanks to the training for the halter show, the filly no longer clung to the mare like she had when she arrived. However, he still believed she’d need a few more months before she was ready to be fully weaned, and even then he’d make sure the separation process was gradual, increasing their time apart more and more.

Some horse owners thought it best to use the abrupt method of just taking one of them away. But Ryan found this not only traumatic for the horses but for he and his family as well. The duo’s frantic cries as they called out to each other often prevented anyone in his household from getting any sleep.

Ryan checked his cell phone again. He’d left Bree five cell phone messages throughout the day,
but she hadn’t returned his calls. Could be she’d taken some of the guests on a trail ride through the dead cell zone. He’d drive over to her guest ranch right after dinner. Then hopefully they could pick up where they’d left off before Mrs. Owens interrupted their date.

“Dad, you’ve got to see this,” Cody exclaimed, waving a newspaper at him from the doorway of the house as he approached.
“You’re in the paper!”

“I am?” He frowned, wondering if it was a follow-­up article on the filly’s win at the halter show.

“It has your name,” Cody continued. “And Morning Glory’s in the picture, too.”

Yep, had to be about the halter show.

Eager to see what they’d printed, he took the newspaper from Cody’s hands . . . and his gut just about fell through the floor.

“I’ll be
back later,” Ryan said, pulling the keys to his truck from his pocket.

Cody frowned. “What about dinner?”

He shook his head. “I’m not hungry.”

Ryan cut the time it usually took to get to the Collins guest ranch in half. Dirt flew out behind him and the brakes squealed as he rounded corners, but he didn’t care. The only thing on his mind was Bree . . . and her reaction to that awkward,
ill-­timed, manipulated photo.

Had she seen it? Of course she’d seen it.
That’s
why she hadn’t returned any of his calls. Which also meant . . . she was definitely upset.

He clenched the steering wheel, his anger toward Owens flaring up all over again. Yesterday, before Merle left the stable, the man had said if he couldn’t get the corporate contracts he’d make sure
no one
would. Apparently
he hadn’t wasted any time.

Braking hard in front of Bree’s house, Ryan switched off the engine, jumped out of the truck, and pounded on her door.

Jed Collins answered. “I only have two words for you, Tanner,” he said, his tone gruff. “You’re
fired
.”

“Technically, that’s three words,” Ryan told him, his gaze searching the interior of the house behind the big man. “Now I have three words
for you—­where is Bree?”

“She doesn’t want to see you.”

“Yes, she does,” Bree said, her voice firm.

Ryan breathed a sigh of relief as her father stepped aside and Bree came outside to join him. Then he saw the expression on her face.

The one of false calm she wore when masking her true emotions.

“The photo was rigged,” Ryan said, his throat suddenly hoarse. “Owens threw a punch
I didn’t expect and afterward Chelsea, Katelyn, and Rebecca ran toward me to see if I was all right.”

“Their hands were all over you,” Bree accused.

“They wanted to help me get back up.” He took another step toward her. “Look, Owens tried to bribe the women into giving him the contract for their corporate retreat. When they refused, he got mad and sent the picture to the newspaper.”

“And posted it on our website,” Bree added.

“He did?” Ryan met her steely-­eyed gaze and his gut wrenched as he realized the damage that must have done. “Merle said his wife threatened to divorce him if he didn’t get the contracts. The anniversary of Gail’s death always makes Olivia upset and I think the fact their ranch isn’t getting the same amount of bookings as you has put her over the
edge. The doctors have her on some special meds to help calm her down, but either she hasn’t taken them . . . or it isn’t helping.” When Bree’s facial features didn’t change, he added, “When Merle hit me, he scared Cody.”

This time her expression faltered. “Are you sure he wasn’t trying to
protect
Cody? Stop him from seeing you with the three wannabe cowgirls?”

Ryan shook his head. “
No!
It wasn’t like that. Cody is the one who brought Chelsea, Katelyn, and Rebecca into the stable to see the filly.”

Bree jerked her thumb back toward the interior of the house. “You hear that? The phone is ringing.
Again.
At first I thought we were in trouble because we had ten cancellations from different families who had read the paper and decided this wasn’t the type of environment they wanted
their loved ones exposed to.” She raised her chin. “Then I started getting calls from women.
Dozens
of them. Single women who all want to come to our ranch, hoping to get their own hands on our charming, kick-­up-­your-­heels handsome weekend wrangler,
Ryan Tanner
.”

For a moment he was rendered speechless. Then he cleared his throat and said, “Bree, the only one I care about—­”

“Please,
don’t . . . say it,” she said, cutting him off. Her voice wavered and a tear slipped down her cheek.

“I can fix this,” Ryan promised.

She gave him a sad look and shook her head. “You can’t.”

“
Trust
me.”

She didn’t answer, but he could see the skepticism on her face.

“Believe me, I never wanted you to get hurt,” Ryan said, drawing close. “I’m sorry about the photo, sorry about
the phone calls, sorry I didn’t ask you out sooner, or tell you that I—­”

He bent his head and kissed her, hoping she’d understand, hoping they’d find a way to get past all of this.

She placed her hands on his chest and pushed him away. Another tear fell down her cheek, and for a moment all she did was continue to shake her head.

Then she looked him straight in the eye and said, “Tanner,
please—­just . . . don’t.”

B
REE HUNG UP
the phone—­yet again—­and realized she faced the same dilemma as she did when she first arrived. An overabundance of booked guests and no one to take care of them.

The rumble of a truck brought her to the office door and her heart took a leap when she saw the Triple T emblem marked on the side. Had Ryan returned?

No. The truck wasn’t his but
belonged to his younger brother Josh. What would Josh be doing here? He didn’t get out of the truck, but the passengers he’d driven
did
.

The three CEOs of Iridescent Beauty cosmetics.

Bree sucked in her breath. How dare they come back here! Did they really think she’d welcome them with open arms? Contract or no contract, she was done with them.

But even with all the recent phone calls,
she still had the whole month of August open.

She opened the door and let them in. And smiled. “I hope you are here to sign the contract and leave a deposit to book the corporate retreat?”

“That’s why we’re here,” Chelsea said, her expression apologetic. “There is no corporate contract.”

“We’re not even CEOs,” admitted Katelyn.

Rebecca nodded. “We came out for a free vacation,
but when Mr. Owens threatened us, we realized how awful we’ve been.”

Chelsea handed Bree a check. “We’re heading to the airport, but before we go, we wanted to pay you for our three-­week stay—­with interest for all the misery we’ve caused.”

“There’s . . . no contract?” Bree stared at the check in her hand. The money they offered didn’t come close to covering what her family would have
made if they’d booked the corporate retreat.

She swallowed hard. She should have known. These women didn’t look, act, or talk like any corporate executives she’d ever met. But her grandma often cited,
“There’s an exception to every rule,”
and so she’d tossed out her initial gut instinct and believed they could be the answer to her family’s problems.

“We’re so sorry,” Rebecca added as they
headed back out the door. “For everything.”

Bree was sorry, too. It seemed like Mr. Owens and the realtor had won after all.

Her parents agreed.

“Well, isn’t this another pleasant can of worms,” her father grumbled.

“We’ll never pay off all the hospital bills, never get back on our feet, especially when the new guests find out Ryan’s not here and leave,” her mother said, her voice
rising higher and higher as she spoke.

Meghan, who sat at the breakfast table with them, opened and closed her hand. “Squeak!”

Except this time it wasn’t as funny. Bree thought her mother had a valid reason to carry on the way she did. The temporary bookings were exactly that—­temporary. Maybe her mother was right when she said, “We could still sell.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Grandma
told them. “Sometimes crops flourish, sometimes fail, but year after year we continue to plant seeds. Because from seeds spring hope of a better day. Until then we need to persevere, continue on,
fight
!”

Bree admired her grandma’s never-­ending stream of garden wisdom, but didn’t know if she had any “fight” left in her. After all, what was the point?

The only thing they’d preserved by
holding on to the ranch was their “fight” against each other. Her parents still had no faith in her managerial abilities, and her siblings implied that when it came to Ryan, she’d misplaced her trust.

Later that night, Delaney finally opened up about her divorce while sitting around the campfire, and told her, Sammy Jo, and Luke that Steve had left because he couldn’t handle being tied down
to a wife and kid. He’d said he needed to be free.

“Seems like that’s what most men want these days,” Sammy Jo said, shoving her marshmallow stick into the flames.

“Not
all
of them,” Luke countered, and Bree watched her brother’s gaze slide toward Sammy Jo in a way she’d never expected to see.

Maybe not all was lost.

“Did you get the loan from the bank?” Bree asked, trying her
best to remain hopeful.

But Luke shook his head. “We were denied because the ranch manager’s embezzlement screwed up our finances and credit score.”

“Another letdown,” Bree said, then looked up when the twins came over to join them.

“Do you know what I think is a letdown?” Nora cried. “Working every day, morning, noon, and night to save money for these—­”

“
Trendy Teen
magazine
acrylic nails,” Nadine cut in, “and then have them all break off—­ ”

“Overnight!”
the twins finished together, each holding up both their hands.

“I’m ready to quit!” Nora shouted.

“Me, too!” Nadine agreed, and together they stomped off and the darkness swallowed them whole.

Bree sighed. Although it was late, she took out her cell phone and dialed her ex in New York at his home
number. “Hi, Skip.”

His voice came through the other end of the line. “Bree, is that you?”

“Yeah.” She hesitated, glanced at the others, then asked, “Is that head director position still available?”