But for whatever reason, today, something made him turn — and when he did, his breath caught in his throat.

  It was El.

  He was stunned all over again by how beautiful she was. Even though it had only been a couple weeks since they’d last seen one another, it was as if he had forgotten the power she had over him. Today she was dressed in a white sundress with straps that tied at the shoulders, exposing her collarbones, and he remembered how it had felt to have his mouth and his fingers there. Instantly, he was picturing untying those straps and letting that dress fall to the floor…

  “Mac!” she called, waving to him.

  He hurried over. “It’s all right,” he told the security guard who had been restraining her. “She’s with me.”

  The guard frowned. “You really aren’t supposed to do this, Mr. Palmer. You’re about to go on, and we can’t have laypeople running around on the concourse.”

  “I know,” Mac said. “We’ll only be a moment, I promise.” He would get El box seats. He would do whatever it took. And then he would meet up with her after the show and they would talk about whatever had brought her here — it must be important if she had come all this way.

  Before the security guard could protest any further, Mac took El by the arm and led her over to a corner near the entrance to the ring.

  “I didn’t know you were coming,” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

  “You won’t. But we do have to make this quick,” he said, glancing toward the tunnel that would lead him into the ring. “They’re about to call my name.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said again. “I should have done this differently.”

  “El, I’m just glad you’re here.”

  She looked up at him. “You are?”

  “I hate the way you and I left things,” he told her. “I hate the things I said to you. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. I’ve been letting myself believe that you didn’t have any confidence in me, but I know that’s not true. You’ve always been on my side, far more than anyone else has. That’s why it hurt me when I thought you didn’t think I could handle getting back in the ring. The truth is that I came to value your opinion so much that when I thought I’d lost your support, I couldn’t handle it.”

  “You could never lose my support,” El said. “I’ll always believe in you, Mac. It isn’t that at all. It’s…” She bit her lip, then covered her face with her hands.

  Mac knew his name was about to be called, but suddenly he couldn’t imagine caring about anything more than what she was about to say. He took hold of her wrists and pulled her hands down gently. “Tell me,” he murmured. “What’s the matter?”

  She sighed. “I was worried about your arm,” she said. “That was true. I’m still worried about that. But I would have worried about that no matter when you decided to get out there again. I’ll always worry for you, and I don’t think my worry is any reason for you not to do what you love. In fact, it would break my heart if you quit the rodeo because of the way I feel about that. I would never have wanted you to, and I’d never ask you to.”

  “But you did seem like you didn’t want me to join the tour,” he said.

  “I didn’t,” she admitted. “But it’s because I was being selfish, Mac. I didn’t want you to leave me. That’s why I tried to convince you to stay. And I’m so sorry for that.”

  Mac didn’t know what to say. “You didn’t want me to leave?” he repeated.

  “I know,” she said quickly. “I know I promised you I would take care of my own heart. I know that was always the deal. And I am, and I will. But in the moment, when I found out you were coming to do this, I knew it meant the end of everything between the two of us, and… well, that crushed me a little. I should have taken it in stride, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I cared about you too much, and I had come to depend on what we’ve had between us. I didn’t want it to end. I’m so sorry.”

  “No,” Mac hurried to interrupt her. “I didn’t want it to end either, El.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “God, no. But the writing was on the wall, from the moment I got my cast off. And…” He closed his eyes. “I could feel myself starting to fall in love with you. And that terrified me, because I knew we had no future.”

  “But does it have to be that way?”

  Mac’s heart pounded. She was saying aloud the thing he’d been avoiding for so long. She was finally asking the question.

  “I never meant to fall for you,” he said quietly.

  “I didn’t either,” El said. “But I think it happened anyway, Mac. And I know we told each other it wasn’t going to be like that — you don’t owe me anything. If you tell me to go away right now, I will. I promise you that.”

  “I’m not sending you away.”

  “Good,” she said. She closed her eyes and leaned into him, and he wrapped his arms around her and allowed himself to hold her close.

  “Mac Palmer!” the announcer called.

  The crowd roared. They knew who Mac Palmer was. They had come here to see him.

  But someone else had come here to see him too.

  She tensed. “You have to go?”

  Mac shook his head. “I don’t have to go anywhere,” he said, feeling as if nothing could take him away from her right now. The idea of walking away from the conversation they were in the middle of was impossible to contemplate, and besides, he had walked away from El Moyle too many times already. Who knew how many more chances he would get to make things right with her? He wasn’t about to give this one up.

  He waved to the security guard. “Can you contact someone on that walkie talkie of yours and let them know I won’t be going out today?”

  El stared. “Can you do that?” she whispered. “Isn’t this your very first show since joining the tour?”

  He nodded.

  “You’ve got to go,” she said, starting to pull away from him. “I don’t want to keep you from something so important.”

  “No.” Mac caught her arm and held her. “El, this is the most important thing. This, right here, between you and me. If I walk away from you now, I’ll never find out how this ends, and I can’t live with that. If they kick me off the tour, I can handle it. But I can’t lose you.”

  “Do you really mean that?”

  “I should never have let you get away in the first place,” he said. “I knew how much you meant to me. I just couldn’t admit it to myself, because I could see how hard it was going to be to make it work. No — it wasn’t only that. It’s also that I’m afraid of being too vulnerable. I didn’t want to give you the power to hurt me. But I was only hurting myself by avoiding the way I feel for you. I’m not going to make the same mistake twice.”

  “You do mean it,” she breathed.

  “More than I’ve ever meant anything in my life.”

  She looked into his eyes. “There’s something else I have to tell you,” she said. “And I hope it doesn’t change the way you feel.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  The words hit him like a bolt of lightning. “You are?”

  “I’m sorry to come here and shock you with it,” she said hastily. “But I needed you to know. Whatever you want to do is okay—”

  “El, you can’t possibly question what I’m going to do.” He pulled her close and held her. “Don’t you understand? I’m in love with you.”

  “I know we weren’t planning for this.”

  “We weren’t planning for any of it,” he said. “I wasn’t planning to fall in love, but that happened. And if we’re going to have a baby, I know that’s going to be every bit as wonderful as knowing you and loving you has been. I’ll be right there with you the whole time, El. We’re in this together, and I’m not about to let anything come between us.”

  “You’re not upset?”

  “Upset? I’m excited, El. We’re going to have a baby.” The words felt strange as he said them aloud. It wasn’t something he’d ever expected to happen, and he had certainly never believed he would feel enthusiastic about it.

  But the fact that it was El standing before him and telling him that she was carrying his child changed everything. There was no other woman he would have wanted to share this moment with, but because it was her, he wanted it wholeheartedly. He wanted to share everything life had to offer with her.

  She wiped the tears from her eyes. “I should go,” she said. “You can still get out there.”

  “Go where?” They weren’t going to let her stay on the concourse alone.

  “Marilyn is here,” she said. “She’s waiting in the car. I’ll go back and meet up with her, and — I guess we’ll go back home, and you and I can talk later?”

  And suddenly, Mac knew what he had to do. It had never been more clear to him.

  “I’m coming with you,” he said.

  “Mac, you’ve got to go perform,” she said. “You’ll lose your spot on the circuit.”

  “I don’t need it,” he said. “I thought rodeo was my whole life. I thought it was what made me want to get up in the morning. But I know better now. I don’t need rodeo. I don’t need the circuit. All I need is you, El.”

  He pulled her close and kissed her, and for the first time, it didn’t matter who saw them. It didn’t matter what anyone thought. All that mattered was that he got to keep her in his arms. All that mattered was that, after everything the two of them had been through, he could finally admit his love for her and say that she was his.

  “Give me five minutes to tell someone I’m leaving,” he said. “And then you and I can go back to my hotel and figure everything out.”

  She nodded. “I’ll let Marilyn know it’s okay to go home without me,” she said, pulling out her phone. “But we’re going to have to figure out what we’re going to say to Jeff!”

  Mac laughed. For the first time, the idea of confronting Jeff about this didn’t seem so intimidating. After everything he and El had come through together, he knew this last hurdle was one that could easily be managed as long as they stuck by each other’s side.

  EPILOGUE

  18 MONTHS LATER: EL

  The screen door banged shut behind Mac as he came inside the ranch house. He grabbed the dishtowel from the hook by the sink.

  El snatched it away and swatted him on the shoulder with it. “How many times do I have to tell you that our kitchen towels are not your sweat rags?” she said. “Think about the example you’re setting for Caleb.”

  Caleb — not yet a year old — looked up at the sound of his name. He wasn’t talking yet, but he was very expressive and very responsive to what was going on around him. Now he reached out his arms for his father. Mac lit up in response, as he always did in Caleb’s presence, and went to take him out of his booster seat.

  “He’s not finished eating,” El warned. “If you take him away now, he’s going to bug you for more food later.” In the first months of Caleb’s life, she’d tried to stick to a strict schedule when it came to meals, but she had learned that his appetite couldn’t be regulated by schedules. Now she was a bit more relaxed about such things, letting him eat when he indicated he was hungry, and he’d been sitting in front of his cut-up fruit without eating any of it for the past ten minutes. A little time away from the table might do him good. But it would be Mac’s turn to feed him later.

  “That’s fine,” Mac said, tossing Caleb lightly into the air and catching him, making the boy laugh with delight. “That’s fine, right, Caleb? We’ll get a snack later. We’ll play now.”

  “How were the students today?” El asked.

  “Pretty good,” Mac said. “I’ve got Bradley cantering.”

  “Hey, that’s great.” Bradley was one of the newest students of the riding school the two of them had opened together after Mac had retired from his rodeo career and El had moved onto the ranch with him. The school had done well — there were plenty of students of all ages who wanted to be trained by a well-known rodeo star. Mac had purchased a few more horses to make sure he would have some that were suitable for beginning riders, and he’d committed to keeping all of his horses throughout their lives — even when they slowed down, they would be useful in training students to groom horses properly.

  El couldn’t wait to join him in teaching. For the first few months of her time on the ranch, she’d been able to be a part of things — working with the horses, even if she wasn’t able to ride while pregnant. But toward the end of her pregnancy, she had been forced to stay away from lessons. Now that she was fully recovered from the delivery of her baby, she was ready to start riding again, and to be a part of things, but she and Mac had agreed that she would wait until Caleb’s first birthday before she would take her first student. They would have to coordinate their schedules so that someone could always be available for Caleb — another thing they’d agreed on when they’d started this journey together was that, because their business was operated out of their home, they wouldn’t need to depend on finding childcare for their son. They would take care of him themselves, without hiring anyone. It was something El valued and was grateful for. If she’d had a baby in other circumstances, she knew, she might not have been free to be at home with him as much as she could with Caleb.

  “Bradley wants to have a birthday party here,” Mac said, balancing Caleb on his hip so that he could pull a beer out of the fridge. “His mother asked me whether that was something we could do, but I told her I’d have to talk to you about it first. What do you think?”

  “Bradley’s how old?”

  “Turning nine.”

  El thought about it. “I think that might be okay,” she said. “We’d have to set some kind of limit for how many people would be allowed to come, though. We can’t manage too many guests.”

  “Sure. Well, we’d have to do that anyway, because we don’t want to have more party guests than horses,” Mac said. “I think four or five might be all right.”

  “Do you think the standard waiver we use to cover riding lessons would work for party guests too?”

  “I don’t know, but I can call the lawyer and check on that.”

  “If that all checks out then a party is fine with me,” El said. “It could even open up a new revenue stream, if Bradley’s friends tell their friends about it and we start booking more of them.”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” Mac agreed. “We’ve got to put this kid through college somehow, right?”

  El laughed. “That’s still a long way off.”

  They were interrupted by a knock at the door, and El frowned. “Who’s here? You don’t have any more lessons tonight, do you?”

  “No, I’m done for the day,” Mac said.

  El went to the door and opened it. “It’s Jeff,” she said, surprised. “What’s he doing here?”

  Jeff mounted the porch steps with a grin on his face. “Where’s my favorite nephew?”

  Mac handed Caleb over. “You’re right on time.”

  “Right on time?” El repeated. “What are you two up to?”

  “It’s been a while since you and I went riding up the ridge,” Mac explained. “We’ve been so busy doing the parenting thing that we haven’t had a chance. But I thought it might be fun to get out today, so I brought in a babysitter. What do you think? Are you up for it?”

  “You came all the way to Texas to babysit?” El asked her brother.

  He laughed. “Don’t give me too much credit. The whole family is here. They’re at a hotel. The kids wanted to swim. And we all wanted to spend some time with Caleb here, of course.”

  “You’ve got to stop coming for visits without telling me,” El laughed. “Of course we always want you here, but I’d have cleaned the house if I’d known we were expecting company.”

  “Which is part of why we didn’t tell you,” Mac said. “I know how you get, going on a cleaning frenzy every time someone is going to see the house. Jeff doesn’t mind a little mess, do you, Jeff?”

  “I live with three kids under the age of eight,” Jeff chuckled. “I’m right at home in a little mess, believe me.”

  “So how about it?” Mac asked El. “Are you up for a ride?”

  “A ride sounds great,” she agreed. “Honestly, it’s been ages since I got out and did something just for me.” She loved being a mother, but it was a time-consuming responsibility. “Let me go get changed into my jeans and we’ll go.”

  When she got back down to the kitchen, Mac was nowhere to be seen.

  “He’s outside getting the horses ready,” Jeff explained.

  El nodded. “Caleb’s going to want to eat a little more at some point, and then he’s going to have to burn off some energy before bedtime,” she told her brother. “You can skip bath time tonight.”

  “I don’t mind popping him in a bath. Remember, I have done this three times myself,” Jeff reminded her. “I can handle a baby.”

  “I know you can. I just don’t want to make it too much work for you.”

  “Well, don’t worry about it. I’ve got things under control here. You just go have a good time, El, okay?”

  El nodded. She was so grateful that Jeff was supportive of her relationship with Mac. It hadn’t always been that way — he had been deeply skeptical when he’d first found out about the two of them — but after seeing them together, and particularly after seeing Mac walk away from the rodeo in order to be a better partner and father, he’d been convinced. He understood now that the love between the pair of them was real, and that it ran deeper than any of the flings he was used to watching Mac have. Once he’d known that, he had given them his full support.

  She went out to the yard. Mac handed her the reins to one of the horses he’d saddled up for them, and she mounted. It felt good to be back in the saddle — it had been too long since she’d had the opportunity for a ride.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16