what you’ve told me, your ex would’ve been happy to stay married. And you did say that the two of you are still friends. Are you sure you don’t regret getting a divorce?”
“Trevor was a good guy. A nice guy. But he—” He just hadn’t loved her. Not with the deep, abiding love that Isabelle had craved. “Well, he was a great companion. Just not a husband.”
Shaking her head, Emily-Ann sighed. “I’m not sure I get that. But as long as you think you’re better off now, then that’s all that really matters, I suppose.”
Isabelle finished the brownie and unwrapped the square of wax paper from the fritter. “I am better off. I’m following my dreams.”
Emily-Ann leaned back in her chair. “How is the ranch coming along? Have you found any horses to buy?”
Instead of blurting the curse word burning the tip of her tongue, Isabelle snorted. “Actually, I drove out to Three Rivers this morning to look at their horses, but I didn’t get to first base.”
“Oh, what happened? Out of all of the horses they have, surely you could find something that suited you.”
“Ha! All I got to see was an arrogant cowboy and he promptly sent me on my way.”
Emily-Ann’s mouth fell open. “You mean Holt? He sent you packing?”
“He did. Emily-Ann, I thought you told me he was a charming guy and that he’d be easy to do business with. The guy is a first-class jerk!” Isabelle huffed out a breath and reached for her coffee.
Emily-Ann was perplexed. “I don’t understand how that could’ve happened. But he’s dreamy-looking. Right?”
Isabelle sipped the hot drink and tried not to think about the way Holt Hollister had looked standing there in front of her with his long legs parted and his arms folded against his broad chest. Dreamy? He’d looked rough around the edges and as tough as rawhide. “I’ll admit he’s sexy, but not the sort I dream about. I like manners and kindness in a man.”
Emily-Ann batted a hand through the air. “Holt knows all about manners. Him sending you away—that’s just not the man I know, and I’ve been friends with the whole family since I was a very little girl.”
Isabelle shrugged, while trying not to take the man’s behavior personally. “There must’ve been something about me that Holt didn’t like. Or maybe something I said. Like hello,” she added dryly. “No matter. Blake invited me to come back tomorrow and I’m going to take him up on the invitation.”
Emily-Ann looked relieved. “Oh, so you met Blake. He’s a real gentleman.”
“I’ll put it this way, he’s nothing like his brother,” Isabelle replied.
“So what did you think about Three Rivers? It’s quite a place, isn’t it?”
Nodding, Isabelle admitted, “Beautiful. But nothing like I was expecting. I thought the main ranch house would be a hacienda-type mansion surrounded by a stone wall with an elaborate gated entrance. Instead, it was a homey three-story house with wood siding and a front porch for sitting.”
Emily-Ann sighed. “The Hollisters are a homey bunch. Guess that’s why the family is so well liked. They’re just regular folks. Even though they have oodles of money.”
Isabelle’s ex had also had oodles of money. Perhaps not as much as the Hollisters, but he’d had enough to give her a tidy fortune in the divorce settlement. Money was necessary, and Isabelle would be lying if she said she didn’t appreciate the life it was allowing her to lead. Particularly with her plans to build a horse farm. But money wasn’t everything. In the end, Trevor’s money hadn’t made up for his inability to love her.
“Well, if I don’t meet a different Holt tomorrow, I’m going to suggest he drive up to the Grand Canyon and take a flying leap off the South Rim.”
“Ouch. He must have really rubbed you the wrong way.”
Just the thought of Holt Hollister rubbing her in any way sent a shiver down Isabelle’s spine. Maybe the women around here went for the barbarian type, but she didn’t.
Purposely focusing her attention on the apple fritter, Isabelle said, “Let’s talk about something else, shall we? I don’t want to ruin the rest of my day.”
* * *
For the first night in the past ten nights, no foals were born and Holt managed to sleep until four thirty in the morning without being disturbed. Even so, the moment he opened his eyes, he jerked to a sitting position and stared around the bedroom, disoriented.
What was he doing in bed and what the heck had happened while he’d been asleep? Swinging his legs over the side of the mattress, he reached for the phone on the nightstand and punched the button for the direct line to the foaling barn. It rang six times before someone finally picked it up and by then Holt was wide-awake.
“Yep.”
“Matt, is that you?” Matthew Waggoner was the ranch foreman and had been for several years. His job was mostly handling the cowhands, the cattle, and everything that entailed. He usually stayed away from the mares and foals.
“Yep, it’s me. What’s wrong?”
“Why are you in the foaling barn?” Holt asked. “Has something happened?”
“No. Everything is quiet. I’m spelling Leo. He’s dead on his feet. Sounds like you are, too.”
Holt raked a hand through his tumbled hair, then reached for the jeans he’d left lying on the floor by the bed. “When I woke up and realized I’d been in bed all night, it scared me.”
Matthew chuckled. “That’s a hell of a thing to be scared about. Hang up and go back to sleep. The mares in the paddock are all happy and the hands and I won’t be leaving out of the ranch yard until six anyway.”
“Thanks, Matt. But my sleep is over. I’ll be down as soon as I grab something from the kitchen.”
In the bathroom, he sluiced cold water onto his face, then ran a comb through his dark hair. The rusty brown whiskers on his face hadn’t seen a razor in three days, but he wasn’t going to bother shaving this morning. He had more important worries.
After he’d thrown a denim shirt over his jeans and tugged on a pair of worn cowboy boots, he hurried down to the kitchen, where Reeva was already shoving an iron skillet filled with buttermilk biscuits into the oven. The scents of frying bacon and chorizo filled the warm room.
“Got any tortillas warm yet, old woman?” Holt asked as he sneaked up behind the cook and pecked a kiss on her cheek.
Without batting an eye, she pointed to a platter stacked with breakfast tacos wrapped in aluminum foil. “The tacos are already made. What do you think I do around here anyway? Sit reading gossip magazines or lie in bed? Like you?”
In her early seventies, Reeva was a tall, thin woman with straight, iron gray hair that was usually pulled into a ponytail or braid. She’d been working as the Hollister cook since before Holt had been born and now after all these years, she was a part of the family. Which was all for the best, he thought,
