horse.
Matt hooked a thumb into his pocket. “Can I see your horse?”
Liv drew in a breath that made her chest rise—not that he was looking—and changed the subject. “What are your plans for the future?”
“Excuse me?” he asked.
“Simple question. What are your plans for the future?” She used the same voice she’d used while trying to help him learn calculus. A voice geared to hide her innate shyness.
“I injured my knee a month ago in Austin. I’m here to finish healing up, train a little and then I’ll go back onto the circuit.” He figured another week of ground work and then he’d get back on his horse and start some serious training. Hopefully his doctor would agree when he saw him in a few days.
Liv didn’t so much as blink when he’d said he had to heal, maybe because he’d been plagued by so many injuries the past two years that hearing he had another meant nothing. Not that he thought Liv was following his rodeo career; it was just that when a hometown boy made good, the locals kept track.
“How long will it take your knee to heal?”
Matt shifted impatiently, wanting very much to put an end to the questions by saying, “Why do you want to know and where’s my horse?” but instead responded with the more congenial, “Time will tell.”
There was another long pause, and for a moment she stared past him out into the pastures behind the barn. He almost turned to see what she was staring at before realizing she was making a decision.
Which told him that Beckett was definitely on this ranch.
“I have a horse,” she finally said. “With a brand inspection and a bill of sale to go with it.”
“Is it my horse?” Matt asked quietly.
“I bought him from Trena.”
Relief surged through him, even though he knew he had some work ahead of him.
“Trena had no business selling him.”
“Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t.” And from the expression Liv now wore, she apparently believed Trena did have a reason to sell. “That doesn’t matter. If the horse was sold before the divorce, he was community property and the sale is legal. Trena’s name was on the papers.”
Well, shit. Matt took a moment. One thing he’d learned over the years was that expressing anger solved nothing. There were other ways to get what one wanted.
“She had no right to sell, Liv.” He spoke in his most reasonable voice, no easy feat under the circumstances. Trena had skewered him every way she could prior to their divorce, but selling his horse had been her vengeful coup de grâce. “Beckett was home recuperating from an injury.”
“I’m aware,” Liv said stonily.
“And you would keep him, my horse, even though you know that he shouldn’t have been sold.”
“Legally—”
“I’m not talking legally, Liv. I’m talking about a vindictive person trying to hurt another by selling what was dear to him.”
If he’d expected the speech to make a difference in her demeanor, he was disappointed. She continued to stare at him as if he were a nasty slug or something.
Matt rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, feeling like he’d stepped into the twilight zone. Who was this woman? Where was the Liv he’d once known? That nice kid who’d saved his academic life?
Probably scared to death that he was going to take Beckett away from her—which he was, once he figured out how.
“Can I at least see him?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s my horse, Matt. I’m keeping him.” Once again anger started to rise, and once again Matt tamped it down. He needed to be careful, not burn bridges.
“What did Trena tell you?” Because it was pretty damned obvious that Trena had told her something that wasn’t true.
Liv shrugged carelessly, but her expression was taut as she said, “It doesn’t matter. I bought the horse. I’m keeping the horse.”
“Liv...”
“It’s time for you to leave.”
“Liv—”
“Now.”
Matt exhaled, told himself to calm down. Not blow this. “I’ll buy him back,” he said. “For ten percent more than you paid.”
She smiled a little at that, the first smile since he’d arrived and it was more of a smirk—an expression he’d never seen on Liv’s face before. “I’m not selling.”
There was a noise from inside the house and Liv glanced over her shoulder then back at Matt. “My dad is not well,” she said, finally explaining why she was guarding the door, “but I think he’d take a good shot at kicking your ass if you don’t get out of here. So unless you want to fight an ailing older man, I’d get into that fancy truck of yours and get the hell out of here.”
And with that, Liv turned and walked back into the house. For a moment Matt stood, staring at the door she pulled shut behind her.
Realizing that standing on the front walk wasn’t doing him any good, Matt started back to his truck, striding down the cracked sidewalk and across the weed-choked gravel, his knee throbbing with each step. Anger solved nothing, but he was pissed as hell when he climbed into the cab of his truck. Yeah, he could hammer on the front door and maybe Tim would try to kick his ass, or he could go home, regroup. Think this through. Figure out a way to get his horse back.
He was going with plan B. It’d be easier on both him and Tim in the long run.
* * *
AN UNEXPECTED SHIVER ran through Liv as she watched Matt Montoya turn his truck around and drive past the barn. Delayed reaction. She rubbed her hands over her upper arms. She would not let Matt have Beckett.
“Who was here?” Her father’s deep voice sounded from behind her. She’d hoped he’d sleep through Matt’s visit, and he had, so thank heavens for small favors.
“Matt Montoya.”
“Did he need a calculus lesson?”
Liv turned back to her father and smiled a little. Rarely did her father make jokes, and even less so now that he was not feeling well. He was tall and lean, his dark hair streaked with silver, and normally he held himself in an almost military posture. Right now, though, his shoulders were slightly hunched, as if he were in pain. Liv hated seeing him that way, hated that he was pretending he was merely recovering from the flu.
“My horse. He had questions about him.” Liv took one last look at the rooster tail of dust from Matt’s truck, then
