at him. “That’s why I’m inclined to believe him about you.”
“I’ve been hauling horses for the better part of my life.”
Bonita had been looking everywhere but at him. “This isn’t just any horse.” That’s when she looked at him. “Vested Interest is an Oldenburg. He’s seventeen hands tall.” She nodded her head toward his two-horse trailer. “That trailer is way too small.”
As pretty as this woman was, Gabe bristled at the condescension in her tone. It was coming across to him that she thought he was a dumb cowboy who didn’t know one horse from the next. He didn’t bother to tell her that he’d trained Oldenburgs along the way—what would be the point? Yes, he could always use the business, but he wasn’t going to grovel at the feet of the princess to get it.
Flatly, he said, “I don’t transport long-distance in that trailer.”
“You have your rig here?” George seemed to want to get the discussion back on track.
“Yes, sir.”
“I’d like to see it,” George said with a bit of resolve in his tone. “If that’s not too much trouble.”
“I’ve got a minute.”
Gabe loved his long-distance rig and loved to show it off. And his bruised ego made him want to prove to the princess that he wasn’t some ignorant yokel. It had taken him years to build his reputation; he didn’t need Bonita bad-mouthing him in the high-end horse community.
“Where’s the horse?”
“Northern Virginia,” George told him. “Every day we board him in Virginia is another dollar we burn.”
Bonita trailed behind them as they walked the short distance to an oversize garage.
“I hear that,” Gabe said with a nod. “Virginia’s pretty country.”
“Yes, it is,” George agreed. “But nothing like this land right here. This is God’s country.”
They reached the large garage Gabe had custom-built to house his trailer. “I can’t argue with you there.” He pushed the heavy door open and flipped on a light switch.
George whistled, long and appreciative. “Now, that’s a fine setup!”
“Thank you,” Gabe said. “She’s my pride and joy.”
It had taken him several years to save up enough money to put a down payment on this customized, midnight blue, luxury Equine Motorcoach. It had been his dream to own one, and it still felt a little surreal every time he took it out on the road.
George was sold—Gabe could see that. He’d earned the man’s business. But he couldn’t be sure of the daughter. While George set off toward the back of the long rig, Gabe was left with Bonita, who had been standing just inside of the garage in silence. He turned to face her, and that’s when he saw that the lovely woman had had a slight shift in opinion of him.
Bonita slipped her sunglasses to the top of her head. The expression on her face said it all: she was impressed. Their eyes met; Gabe was immediately drawn in to rich, mahogany brown.
“This is unexpected,” she told him in a blunt manner, her eyes back on the rig.
He decided not to be offended. After all, Little Sugar Creek was purposefully humble. The main house at Sugar Creek was a statement of the wealth his father had amassed, but Gabe didn’t need anything fancy. He just needed comfort, function and easy-to-care-for, because he spent a good deal of his time on the road.
“All right.” Bonita’s body language, her tone, as well as the expression on her face, had all softened, signaling to him that she had decided to give him a chance to earn her business. “I’d like a tour.”
* * *
“Hi, Mom.” Bonita smiled fondly at her mother on video chat. “How are you feeling today?”
“I miss you, mija,” her mother said, affectionately calling her “my daughter” in Spanish.
“I miss you, too, Mom. I’ll be home soon.”
Today was the day that Bonita had been waiting for—Vested Interest was going to begin the journey from Virginia to Montana. In advance of the trip, she had taken her father’s personal private jet to Washington, DC, her old stomping grounds, and had a chance to visit with friends and go out on the town. Oh, how she missed living close to the nation’s capital.
“I’ve got to go, Mom. Jill is driving me and we’re almost there.”
“Hi, Mom!” her friend Jill called out from the driver’s side.
One last “I love you” to her mom and Bonita ended the video chat. With a wistful sigh, she admired the Virginia landscape. “I miss it here so much,” she told her friend. Montana was picturesque, but as far as Bonita was concerned, that’s all that was in the plus column. Other than that, it was desolate, backward-thinking and boring.
“We miss you!” Jill exclaimed. “Last night was long overdue.”
“Agreed.”
Bonita had attended graduate school at George Washington University, located in the heart of Washington, DC, and had made so many good friends along the way. Many of her friends, like Jill, went on to take jobs in Congress or went on to attend law school.
Bonita’s plan had been to go to law school and then pursue a career in politics. But that was before her mother was diagnosed with an incurable, degenerative illness, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. That devastating diagnosis changed the trajectory of Bonita’s life.
Her mother, Evelyn, had dreamed of retiring to Montana. With time not on their side, her father retired early, putting the day-to-day operations of his lucrative consulting business in the hands of a chief operating officer, and bought his wife the ranch of her dreams just outside Bozeman, Montana.
Bonita, who had decided to change majors and prepared herself to attend medical school, decided to take an extended break after graduate school to help care for her mother. It hadn’t been a difficult decision to make, but living in Montana had been a hard change for Bonita. She missed her cosmopolitan life—she missed her friends.
“Darn it,” Jill complained. “It looks like we’re here already. This visit was too short!”
“I know,” Bonita agreed. She had thought she would get back to DC much more frequently than had actually happened in reality. It was difficult not to feel a pinch of envy for all of her friends who on social media seemed to be having the time of their lives. While her life seemed to have ground to a halt.
Jill pulled through the gates of Prestige Farm, a state-of-the-art equestrian facility that had been Bonita’s home away from home for much of her teens and twenties. She didn’t have any reason to feel nervous, and yet her stomach felt a bit unsettled. She had never had to have one of her horses transported on a trip that would take over thirty hours. Maybe that was it. Or maybe, it was the thought of encountering Gabe Brand again.
“Promise me.” Jill parked her Mercedes just outside the main office of Prestige
