I don’t want you to end up being one of those weird old men who lives alone and talks to himself all day long.”
Apparently he hadn’t been the only one wondering what his life would be like when Jess went off to college. Part of him dreaded her leaving, while a piece of him looked forward to the freedom he’d have. For as long as he could remember responsibilities ruled his life. From the time he and Reed were strong enough to lift a saddle his father had worked his sons harder than any ranch hand. As the big brother, he’d watched out for Reed. Colt had stepped in to defuse things once their mother, the family peacemaker and punching bag, died. Then at eighteen he’d found himself in the military responsible for a wife with a baby on the way.
An empty nest and the chance to figure out what he wanted to do with the rest of his life sounded pretty good right now.
“Your life shouldn’t stop because you’ve got me to raise.”
“It hasn’t.” He picked up the top bill and scanned the paper, hoping his daughter would take the hint that he was done discussing her dating and his.
“Why don’t you trust me?” Jess accused. “I thought you’d forgiven me for running away.”
Jess’s quiet words and the clear pain in her expressive brown eyes hit Colt hard like a kick from an angry mule. He replaced the bill on the stack. “I have. I know if you’re ever that upset again, you’ll come to me, and we’ll work things out. I don’t want you to ever be afraid to tell me anything.”
Unlike how he and Reed had been with their father, who they tried every trick to avoid. The old man was as likely to greet a simple good morning from his sons with a slap upside the head as a smile, and there was never a way to predict which they’d get or change the outcome. “I trust you. It’s the boys that scare the hell out of me.”
“We’d just being going to a movie.”
He’d told himself he wouldn’t be the hard liner his father had been. He wouldn’t drive his daughter away. The last thing he wanted her thinking was that he didn’t trust her. He sighed. Time to cowboy up and prove the fact. “I’ll compromise. Make it a double date, and you can go.”
His daughter charged around his desk, flung her arms around him and squeezed him tight. “I won’t let you down,” she whispered in his ear and kissed him on the cheek. Then with one last grin, she headed for the door as Nannette McAlister, his assistant at Healing Horses, strolled in. “You’ll never guess what happened. Dad said I could go out on a double date this Friday.”
“You finally wore him down, huh?” Nannette was the kind of mother every child should have. She loved and encouraged her three children, and their friends were always welcome in the McAlister home. All she wanted was for them to be happy. His brother had found that out firsthand.
Since Reed married Avery, Nannette’s youngest and only daughter, he and Jess had been enveloped in the family fold, as well.
“I’m putting my full trust in my daughter,” Colt said to Nannette to emphasize his point with Jess. “She promised she won’t let me down.”
Jess shook her head. “I’m leaving before he changes his mind.”
“Smart girl.”
“I take after my father,” Jess said before she dashed off.
“How’s the morning going?” Nannette asked once she’d settled at her desk, and started booting up her computer.
“Better now that Jess is gone. This dating stuff is going to kill me.”
The older woman smiled knowingly. “I feel your pain. Raising Avery gave me more gray hairs than her brothers combined. I know it doesn’t seem like it sometimes, but you will survive having a teenage daughter.”
“Thank goodness you keep reminding me of that.”
When Nannette heard about him turning the Rocking M into a horse-therapy ranch, she’d immediately volunteered to help with bookkeeping. Then when they started classes, she’d assumed scheduling duties, as well. Taking the money he’d gotten from the grant Healing Horses received three months ago to hire Nannette McAlister had been the smartest thing he’d ever done.
When her computer finished booting up, she punched some keys and said, “We received another client application.” The hum of the printer filled the office. Nannette grabbed the paper, scanned the application and froze. “This can’t be the same Stacy Michaels.”
“I need a little context, Nannette. So far you aren’t making a lot of sense.”
She walked across the room and handed him the paper. “Stacy Michaels was one of the finalists when Griffin was on that ridiculous dating show.”
Colt had wondered what kind of woman went on a show like that and fought with a pack of women to win the “love” of a man they’d just met.
A woman whose moral compass didn’t point due north, that’s who.
From the little bit he saw of the show, he remembered flighty, beautiful women with long legs and short form-fitting skirts that almost showed the good china. Great to look at, but no substance. Women who’d looked down their more-often-than-not surgically altered noses at just about everyone.
After glancing at the application, he said, “It doesn’t matter if it’s the same woman or not because she wants to sign her brother up for the spring therapeutic sports riding session. It’s already started and it’s full.” He picked up his phone and punched in the number listed on the application. The sultry feminine voice that answered could get a rise out of a man two months after he was dead and buried. His pulse rate shot up like a rodeo bull out of the shoot as he asked to speak to Stacy Michaels.
“This is Stacy.”
He shifted in his desk chair. Lord, he’d been alone too long if a woman’s voice over the phone could get his imagination and motor running this fast.
“Hello? You still there?”
“Yeah. This Colt Montgomery. I run Healing Horses. I received the paperwork for your brother.” He explained about the problem with the class she registered Ryan for. “You’ll need to sign him up for our fall class.”
“That won’t work. I’m in the area to film a movie with Maggie McAlister. In fact, she was the one who recommended your program. I was hoping we could work my brother’s therapy session around my shooting schedule. I could just pop over from Twin Creeks, deal with his therapy and then head right back.”
Pop over? Did she think Healing Horses worked like the drive-through lane at McDonald’s?
“Mr. Montgomery, I’m in a bind here. I can’t lose this movie opportunity, but I have to get my brother into therapy. There has to be something we can do.”
He’d heard about Maggie filming a movie on Twin Creeks. Since becoming parents, she and Griffin had started a production company and were trying to do more projects at the family ranch when their reality show The Next Rodeo Star was on hiatus. Considering that, Stacy probably was the same woman who’d been one of Griffin’s bachelorettes.
He shook his head. His gut told him this woman would be trouble. Stacy was probably a high-maintenance city actress
