Horses, Hayrides, And Husbands (Country Brides & Cowboy Boots) Read online

  Doug snorted. “Ruining the land? By eating grass?”

  “Yeah.” Duke shrugged. “Doesn’t make much sense, right?”

  “Why now? We’ve been using the pasture for years,” Travis pressed.

  “I called the Bureau of Land Management, and the lady there said it’s because a local company filed a petition, that foundation I told you about. They want new legislation passed that will affect federally owned lands, and before any lawmakers can consider it, the EPA requires an impact study.”

  “Do you remember which company it is?” Travis demanded.

  Duke’s eyes looked thoughtful. “The Epperson Foundation, I believe.”

  Travis pulled out his phone and Googled it. The page for the Epperson Foundation came up quickly, and he skimmed through their company statement. “They’re a nonprofit, and they want to return federally owned lands to the states,” he announced.

  “By shutting down our pastures?” Doug demanded.

  Duke shrugged. “Who knows how things work in Washington … or in Boise, for that matter. Those folks don’t have any idea they’re hurting real people and real animals.” He sighed heavily, then gave each of his workers a direct look. “It sure puts a knot in our rope. Without the pasture grass, we’ll have to buy feed for the horses, and … man, I’m going to have to work the numbers to see if I can afford it,” he said thickly. “I may have to get rid of a few horses.”

  Travis’s gaze traveled over the stable where the Clydesdales were waiting for their dinner. He’d been here three years, had helped deliver two of the younger ones, and with any luck, Crooner should be pregnant now. He thought about how Jemima got bossy with the others, how Litton liked to butt him around when he groomed her, how El Diablo took off running the minute he was released to the pasture. His heart clenched. Which ones would they lose?

  Doug was on his own phone. “Says here the Epperson Foundation is owned by a guy who won the lottery a few years ago. Hey, I remember that! He won something like a billion dollars. Biggest jackpot in state history.”

  Travis gritted his teeth. “And now he thinks he can push everyone else around just because he has money.” He glanced at Duke. “Okay if I finish unloading and then take off for a few hours?”

  “Sure, but what are you going to do?”

  “They’re in Hailey.” Travis waved his phone, still open to the Epperson Foundation. Its contact page showed a small house on Hailey’s Main Street. “Maybe I can go talk to this idiot and see if he’ll withdraw his application.”

  He rehearsed what he’d say during the drive and as the miles ticked by, he became more and more ticked off himself. Everything was going great, and then some stupid foundation had to come meddling, driving honest, hardworking people out of business because some rich guy thought he knew better than everyone else. His temper burned.

  When he reached the right address, he parked by the curb. He was a mess, hay stuck to his jeans, his boots caked with mud and worse, but he didn’t care. He’d earned this grime; the spoiled jerk who ran the foundation couldn’t say the same.

  The front door squeaked when he pushed it open, and though everything smelled like new paint, the wood floors were obviously old, as was the reception area. A pretty redhead looked up from a desk with a smile. “Welcome to the Epperson Foundation. How can I help you?”

  “I want to talk to whoever is in charge of environmental impact studies … please,” Travis said, working hard to stay civil.

  “Mr. Epperson is out of town right now.” She flipped through a schedule on a tablet. “He’ll be back next week; can I schedule a meeting for you then?”

  Travis ground his jaw. Typical. The guy threw his money and influence around and didn’t even stay in town to see the fallout. “I need to speak to someone now,” he grated. “It’s kind of urgent.”

  The receptionist hesitated. “I guess I could see if Ms. Epperson is available. Will that be okay?”

  “Yeah, fine … whatever.”

  “Please have a seat, I’ll be right back.” She got up from her desk and disappeared down a short hallway while Travis paced around the room, sending the old wood floor creaking. There were brown leather couches in the waiting area on either side of a large wooden trunk that served as a coffee table. Outdoor magazines were scattered across the trunk’s surface, and large, framed pictures of famous Idaho landmarks covered the walls—The Tetons, Yellowstone, and Shoshone Falls.

  “Sir?” The redhead was back. “Ms. Epperson can meet with you. Right this way, please.”

  He followed her down the hallway to an oak door. The receptionist knocked quickly, then opened the door and stood back. “Go right in.”

  Travis stomped through the open door … and stopped dead.

  * * *

  Misty looked up from her desk, and her heart fell, seeming to drop straight through her body to splat onto the floor beneath her feet. Travis stood framed in the doorway, his face going from anger to shock to incredulity in an instant.

  “Misty?”

  “Wh-what are you doing here?”

  “I should ask you the same question.”

  “I work here,” she said, hating how her voice shook.

  “But she said …” Travis turned to look back toward the reception area. “That woman said I’d be meeting with Mrs. Epperson.”

  “Ms. Epperson,” Misty corrected, feeling the heat rushing to her face. “Ty is my brother.”

  “Wait. The guy who owns this place … the rich guy, is your brother?”

  She waved one hand toward a chair. “D-do you want to sit down?”

  He closed the door and moved farther into the room. “You told me your name was Rivers.” His tone was hard, like a shovel scraping over concrete.

  She clenched her fingers together. “Rivers is my mother’s maiden name. I … I didn’t want you to know I was—”

  “A rich person?”

  “That’s not what I …” She trailed off; that’s exactly what she’d meant. Her temper flared. “What’s the big deal, anyway?” she demanded.

  Travis crossed his arms. “You tell me. You’re the one who thought you should lie about who you were.”

  “Only because you were being completely unreasonable at the party. The first thing you said was how much you hated rich people, and I didn’t want you to think—”

  “So you lied to me?”

  “No!” Her shoulders drooped. “Okay, a little. I fudged my name, but only because I knew if you heard ‘Epperson,’ you’d think the worst, and I didn’t want … I already liked you.”

  She hoped her admission would soften him up, but it only seemed to make him angrier. The tanned skin of his jaw tightened, and his eyes seemed like lasers, cutting straight through her. “Your brother is Ty Epperson, billionaire lottery winner.” His words matched his eyes, harsh and sharp.

  “Yes,” Misty admitted. “But so what? My brother is a great person. He does a lot of good with his money.”

  “So much good that he’s driving us out of business.”

  Misty shook her head. “What are you even talking about?”

  His boots thumped on the floor as he paced across her small office. “The northlands pasture has been shut down for an environmental impact study, requested by … gee, who could it be? The Epperson Foundation. And without the pasture, my boss can’t afford to feed all the horses, so now he’ll have to sell some of them. Is that what your brother wanted?”

  “No, of course not!” Misty took a careful breath. “I don’t … I do marketing, I don’t deal with this kind of stuff. But if the feed is the problem, I can have Jamie cut you a check. How much do you need?”

  She thought it would help, but knew instantly she’d made a mistake. Travis shook his head incredulously. “So you stick your nose where it doesn’t belong and then when it hurts someone, you try to buy your way out of it? How typical.”

  “That’s not what I’m doing!”

  “Really? Seems that way to me.” His voice rose. “
We don’t want your money. We want the pasture opened so the horses can go there just like they have every year, and you and your brother can butt out.”

  She floundered, not sure what to tell him and unable to think of anything besides how stupid and pigheaded he was being. “Why don’t you just wait until my brother gets back and he can work things out?”

  “In a week? What are the horses supposed to eat in the meantime? Air?”

  Misty ran her hands through her hair. “Jamie will write you a check,” she said through gritted teeth. “Buy the stupid feed, and when Ty gets back, he’ll figure it out. You can pay us back if it’s that big of a deal.”

  “That big of a deal,” Travis parroted bitingly. “Nice how you throw out words like that. As if a man’s livelihood and lifetime of work means nothing.”

  “That’s not what I said!” She gestured to the chair on the other side of her desk. “Will you please sit down so we can discuss this like normal people?”

  Travis glared at her. “I’ll stand, thanks. And don’t bother about the check; we’ll figure it out without your help.”

  Misty slammed her hands down on her desk. “Then why’d you even come here?”

  “I came to see your brother and give him a piece of my mind.”

  “Then I guess it’s a good thing he’s not here. You don’t seem to be playing with a full set, so you might want to hold on to as many pieces as you can!”

  Travis’s eyes widened and he stared at her for a moment. “Wow. I guess it’s a good thing this is coming out now,” he finally said.

  “What’s coming out now?”

  “How you’re just like all the rest, a spoiled rich girl who thinks money will solve all her problems.”

  She glanced at his hands. Hands that only a few days before had been holding her face so tenderly as he gave her a goodbye kiss. Hands that had been splayed through her hair, sending tingles shooting through her body. Now they were clenched into fists at his sides. “I’m trying to help. You’re the one acting like a complete jerk,” she said.

  “I’m not the one who lied and went so far as to give me a fake name right from the start.”

  “Well, sorry for trying to get past the giant chip on your shoulder.”

  “I don’t have a chip on my shoulder.”

  “You’re right, Travis. It’s not a chip, it’s more like a …” She searched for the right word, came up short. “It’s more like an entire two-by-four.”

  He snorted. “What does that even mean?”

  “That you’re an idiot, is what it means!” Misty yelled. She darted a look toward the empty crib in the corner. Thank goodness her mom had Wyatt today.

  After a long moment of silence, Travis grunted. “It’s been real. Guess I’ll see you around.” He turned, wrenched the door open, and stomped out of her office.

  Misty leapt from her chair, raced around the edge of her desk, and slammed the door behind him so hard the windows rattled. She watched through the sheer curtains as he climbed into his truck and screeched away from the curb.

  Deathly quiet filled the house, made worse because Misty knew Jamie was probably frozen at the reception desk, completely bewildered.

  Well, that made two of them. She made her way back to her desk and sank into her chair. What had just happened? She felt stunned, like she’d had a bad fall and hit her head. One minute she was daydreaming about Travis’s kisses, and the next he’d come raging through the door yelling about rich people.

  A light tap sounded on her door and Jamie’s voice filtered through the wood. “Misty? Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah, fine,” Misty said, swallowing hard.

  There was a pause. “Do you need anything?”

  “No, I’m okay, thanks.”

  Jamie’s footsteps retreated down the hallway, and Misty buried her face in her hands. Everything was jumbled and glare-y … like too-bright sunlight stabbing her eyes. What had she said? What had he said?

  Spoiled rich girl. Liar.

  Misty clenched her fingers in her hair as her anger flared. She replayed the scene again, her mind conjuring up a thousand better reactions than the one she’d given him and a thousand names she wanted to call him.

  Okay, she shouldn’t have misled him about who she was; she could understand his confusion and anger about that part. But in hindsight, hadn’t she’d been right not to tell him? He’d proven today how completely unreasonable he was about it.

  If she’d been honest with him at the party, at least she wouldn’t have wasted her time. And her kisses. And her dreams.

  Stupid.

  She grabbed her phone and pulled up his number—her mind vacillating between anger and sorrow. Did she want to call him more names or apologize and ask his forgiveness? She didn’t know. She stared at his name for a long time, then finally scrolled to the edit menu and pushed “delete contact.”

  * * *

  Travis drove back to Sun Valley on autopilot, only marginally aware of what he was doing. He’d fallen too fast again, let himself get in too deep, and here he was, right back in the same situation he’d been in with Ashlyn.

  Heartbroken.

  Only this time felt worse. Because Misty had seemed like … like a part of him, like someone he’d known for a long time, someone he’d been missing for a long time and had finally found. It had all felt so natural, nothing forced, nothing awkward, just everything clicking along like it should.

  Yeah, because she’s a liar.

  He stomped on the gas and his old pickup roared in response.

  When he reached the stables, he parked around the back and went in through the side door. It was dim and quiet—the only sounds came from the stalls where the Clydesdales were patiently chewing their afternoon oats. Every once in a while one would push out its breath in a whoosh.

  Travis slid back the bolt to Jemima’s stall and stepped inside. She turned her head, regarding him seriously with her liquid brown eyes, seeming to know something was wrong. He reached out and stroked her neck. He’d gone to Hailey to try and save her and the rest of the horses, and instead he’d ruined everything … for the stables, for the horses, and for himself.

  Groaning, he dug his fingers into Jemima’s coarse black mane and pressed his face to the soft brown hair of her neck. The thought of never seeing Misty again, never being able to hold her again, pierced his gut like a knife, twisting deeper and deeper, offering no hope of relief.

  Chapter 8

  Misty squinted at her menu in the darkness. The restaurant was so dim she was tempted to take out the flashlight on her phone.

  But that would embarrass everyone—Holland, Ty, and especially Gregory Brookes, who sat to her right, his arm resting on the table and nudging up against hers. The double date had been Holland’s idea; Misty hadn’t even known she had Gregory’s number, but ten minutes after she’d agreed to the date, Holland had everything set up.

  “There are shops up and down Main Street with all kinds of local handmade crafts,” Holland was telling Gregory. She and Ty had just returned from a weekend trip to Cobble Creek, Wyoming, and Grand Teton National Park. “I ordered a sofa table from a place called Frank & Signs. It’s completely handmade from reclaimed hardwoods and will be here next week. I can’t wait!”

  “Trust Holland to scout out the best shopping,” Ty said with a grin.

  “Hey, I did plenty of hiking and the paddleboats behind the hotel,” Holland said, shooting him a lofty look. “I deserved those shopping days. Besides, it gave you some time to meet up with those donors, right?”

  “I’m only teasing you.” Ty gave her a look that would normally have had Misty rolling her eyes. He was so in love it was sickening. “Did you meet the McIntyres at the Millburn party?” Ty asked, turning to Gregory.

  Misty searched her memory for someone named McIntyre and came up blank. The only thing she remembered from the Millburn party was Travis.

  “I don’t think so.” Gregory shook his head.

  “Good people,�
�� Ty said. “Amanda was very interested in the foundation. I hope they’ll come for a visit soon.”

  “I keep telling Dad we should get more involved with your work,” Gregory said. “But for now, we’re too busy with the resort.”

  Ty gave him a quick grin. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you eventually.”

  “They brought me this bracelet from Cobble Creek,” Misty said, holding out her wrist. She’d been trying to join the conversation, but once the words were out, she wished she could take them back. She sounded like a child, interrupting with a toy to demand attention while the grown-ups talked business.

  “It’s really pretty.” Gregory bent forward to examine the delicate silver bracelet gleaming on her wrist. “Maybe I should bring up your foundation with Dad again.” He straightened and gave her a meaningful look. “It’d be fun to work together.”

  Misty’s cheeks warmed. Did he think she’d been hinting at ways to spend more time with him?

  “We should probably decide on dinner,” Holland broke in smoothly. “I hear the tuna tartare is amazing.”

  “Like fish sticks with tartar sauce?” Misty asked. “I didn’t see it on the menu.”

  Gregory laughed. “No, not fish sticks. Tuna tartare is raw tuna steak mixed with spices and avocado. It’s delicious.”

  “No thanks, I don’t like raw fish,” Misty said, wrinkling her nose at the thought.

  “How about the lobster tail?” Holland asked. “The herbed butter they use here is so good I’d eat it plain.”

  Misty glanced around the restaurant. The low timbered ceiling and thick, dark wood paneling on the walls made the place feel oppressive and did little to help with the lighting situation. There were several chandeliers made from elk antlers hung around the room, but the dimmer switches were fully engaged, and they emitted only a weak glow. The restaurant’s centerpiece was an ancient linden tree, and the building had been constructed around it. The tree rose through the floorboards and disappeared through the ceiling, the massive trunk covered in scaly bark. In any other situation, Misty would have found it charming, but here it seemed contrived and kind of sad, like it was trapped in this room longing to breathe free.