Forever Cowboy (Montana Brides Book 5) (19 page)

“I need to clean up first. I’ve been out on the ranch for most of the day. I can meet you at Sarah’s once I’m done.”

Emily jumped to her feet. With her arms overflowing with flowers and her blue eyes glowing, she looked as pretty as a bride.
 

“If I’m not at Sarah’s when you get there, I’ll see you in the morning.”

Alex blinked once, then replayed what she’d just said. His night of romance wasn’t looking too promising. “You could always stay for dinner. We could put some music on, dance, enjoy each other’s company.” He stood up and moved in close, hoping she got the hint.

She took a step backward. “I’ve got work to do. Maybe another night.” And she left, walking toward Sarah’s house with her hips swinging and wild flowers falling behind her.
 

Alex didn’t know what had just happened, but he knew what wouldn’t be happening. And that left him wondering if he’d ever understand Emily.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Alex sat on a sawhorse in Nicky’s office, admiring the walls he’d just painted with his dad.
 

“I’ve got to hand it to Emily, she knows what she’s doing,” Jim Green said. “What did she call this color again?”

Alex nudged the almost empty bucket of paint at his feet and squinted at the label. “Duck Egg Blue.”

“Nice.”

“It’s supposed to be calming. She figured Nicky would appreciate some peace in her life once the new baby’s born.”

Jim nodded and drunk the rest of his Cola. “Are they looking forward to working together?”

“From what I’ve seen they haven’t had much time to think that far ahead. They’ve done nothing but work on the marketing plan Nicky came up with for the opening of the boutique. And then they’ve got the fashion show.”

“This place will be the talk of Bozeman. You’ve done a great job, Alex.”

“Not bad for a bull rider with a steel rod in his leg.”

“Not bad by anyone’s standards,” his dad added. “You’ve got a talent for putting things together. Not many people would have been able to do what you’ve done here. You should be proud of yourself.”

“It was a team effort. Emily told me what to do and I did it.”

His dad smiled. “The foundation of many happy relationships.”

Alex choked on his Cola. “You’ve been talking to Jacob, haven’t you?”

“Could have been. It’s the only way I get to find out what’s going on.”

“What exactly did he say?”

Jim picked up his sandwich and took a healthy bite. “Nothing that I couldn’t see for myself. Have you got another soda in that fridge of yours?”

Alex disappeared into Emily’s workspace and came back with two cold sprites in his hand.
 

His dad popped the cap of one of them and took a long swallow. “He told me you like Emily. Anyone could see that. You’ve never stopped being sweet on her since you first met.”

Alex tried to feel insulted, even mildly annoyed would have worked. But he couldn’t find anything to bother him. “Jacob talks too much. Has he told you why he’s back in Bozeman?”

“To check up on you.”

Alex shook his head. “There’s more to it. It’s costing him money being here, and if there’s one thing my brother doesn’t like wasting, it’s money.”

Jim flicked breadcrumbs off the front of his shirt. “Tell you what. You ask him what’s going on and when you find out, let me know.”

“Have we always been this good at talking in circles?”

His dad laughed. “Beats me. It works, so what’s the harm?”

Alex couldn’t have agreed more. But sometimes, when he had important things to say to his dad, questions he needed answers to, it was hard. Times like today.

“I saw Doc Johnson the other day.”

Jim put his drink down beside him. “What did he say?”

“The results came through from the specialist. I can ride again.”

His dad watched him carefully. “That’s good news isn’t it?”

Alex had thought it would be. He’d been desperate to get back in the chute for months. But then he started working with Emily and everything changed.
 

He sat quietly, trying to put together the words that he didn’t know how to say. “It used to be that I lived and breathed bull riding. I couldn’t wait to get to the next rodeo. Now…well, now I’m not so sure that I want that kind of life anymore. I’m not that man anymore, dad.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.”
 

Jim moved and sat beside him on the sawhorse. “You get times like that in your life. What’s stopping you from making a decision?”

Alex wanted to tell his dad about the weight of three generations of bull riders’ expectations. His great-grandfather had been long buried when Alex had won his first world championship title. But when he’d stood in the arena accepting the heavy gold buckle, his great-grandfather’s spirit was right beside him. Alex’s pride, excitement and relief were as real as his grandfather’s, as real as his fathers. Lately, that weight sat uncomfortably on his shoulders.
 

“I’m thinking of retiring.” He couldn’t look at his dad, so he focused on the drop cloth covered in splatters of paint, the rollers that needed to be washed.
 

His dad didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. “It’s not easy when everything changes.”
 

Alex took a deep breath. “Granddad used to sit me on his knee and tell me stories about bull riders. I grew up thinking those guys had superpowers. When we saw you compete I felt like the luckiest kid alive. It’s not the same anymore. I get more of a buzz helping the students at your rodeo school than I do thinking about the circuit.”

Alex turned to his dad. “When did you know it was time to stop riding?”

Jim chuckled. “When your mom told me to get home and stay home. I can’t say that I blamed her. I was gone more than I was here. There wasn’t the same prize money that there is now. We put food on the table and managed to pay off the ranch, but that was about all. And then there was what happened in New Zealand. I owe your mom more than she’ll ever know.”

Alex tried to imagine what his parents had gone through after his dad returned from his last overseas rodeo. His dad had slept with one of the girls that had followed him around the country, and Gracie, his half sister, was the end result. Only his dad hadn’t known about Gracie until eighteen months ago.
 

“Do you want my advice?” his dad asked.

Alex nodded. He needed someone to talk to about his future. Everything kept going round in circles. One minute he knew what he wanted and the next minute he was second guessing himself.
 

“Listen to what your heart is telling you. We’ve all had to make tough decisions. When it involves something that’s the center of your world it’s even tougher. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. It’s your life, Alex.”

It might be his life, Alex thought, but someone else’s was at stake too.

Emily hauled another bucket of warm water across the room. Nicky had a mop in her hands, swinging it across the floor in a wide arc. “Here you go. I’ll get rid of the dirty water and start cleaning the shelves.”

Nicky leaned on the mop handle and smiled. “I’m glad we didn’t leave the clean-up until tomorrow. There’s more to do than I thought.”

Gracie walked past them with a bag of trash in her hands. “That’s because the boutique is huge. I’ve pulled all of the empty boxes apart and stacked them in the hallway for recycling. Did you want me to take the plastic wrap off the new chairs?”

Emily looked at the bright red velvet chairs and then at Gracie. She’d worked out a floor plan of where the furniture would go before she’d ordered anything. When she’d seen the amount of cleaning that needed to be done, she’d decided to leave the chairs wrapped until everything was finished.
 

“You need to sit in one of them and take it easy.” Emily had thought Gracie’s baby bump was huge a month ago. At nearly full term she looked as though she was about to explode.
 

“Would you stop worrying about me? I came to give you a hand. I’m fine. The baby is fine. A little bit of cleaning isn’t going to make any difference to when this baby is born.”

“I’ve been given strict instructions to watch out for you,” Emily said. “If Trent saw the pile of boxes you’ve ripped apart I’d never hear the end of it.”

“Trent’s not here.” Gracie grinned. “And what he doesn’t know, doesn’t hurt him. Do you want the plastic off the chairs or another job done?”

Nicky passed Emily a clipboard. “You’d better give in. Gracie’s not going to sit down anytime soon.”

Emily ran her finger down the list that Nicky had put together, trying to find something that wouldn’t send Gracie into labor. “Alex said that he’d clean the light fittings and set up the computers. Once he’s back with the office furniture we can unpack that. We’ve finished the sales desk and the mannequins are all dressed. All of the shelving upstairs is clean. Do you want to start unpacking the boxes of threads and trims? They go upstairs on the right hand side of the table under the window.”

“Consider it done. Where are they now?”
 

“On my cutting table. They’re in the box marked T and T.”

Gracie waddled across the room, holding onto the banister as she made her way upstairs.
 

“Has anyone told you that you look positively skinny from behind?” Nicky asked with a smile in her voice.

“Not lately.” Gracie sighed as she carefully turned on the stairs. “I didn’t think there were any skinny bits left. I’m all baby and then some.”

“A perfectly designed package of two,” Nicky said.
 

Gracie smiled and kept moving upstairs. She looked tired, more tired than Emily had seen her. “Do you think Gracie’s all right?” she whispered to Nicky.

“She’ll be okay. The last few weeks are hard and when you’re barely five-foot it must be a lot harder.”

Emily started cleaning the shelves, thinking about Gracie, Trent, and the baby that would change their lives. Gracie had come to Montana looking for her birth father and ended up falling in love with a cattle rancher. She’d left her job, her friends in New Zealand, and everything she knew.
 

She’d become Trent’s wife and settled into life in Bozeman. Emily smiled as she thought of Gracie and her million watt personality. Gracie didn’t settle. She lived every day like it was her last and had fun. She loved life and loved the people around her.
 

Gracie had opened her heart to her birth father. She’d forgiven her mom for keeping the truth from her and learned to appreciate her second chance family.
 

Alex was Emily’s second chance man. It didn’t matter what had gone before. He was a special part of her life and she wasn’t going to give up the promise of what could be.

An hour later, Emily stepped back, admiring the gleaming wooden shelves.

“What are you going to put on them?” Nicky asked.

“Books and art. I spoke with Kelly and Becky the other day. It seems silly not to join forces considering our businesses are right beside each other. We’ve decided to set some space aside in each of our stores and rotate different displays each month. Tess is going to print off some discount vouchers for the café. We’ll hand those out to everyone.”

“Good thinking. Has the graphic designer dropped off the catalogs for opening day?”

“Alex is picking them up tomorrow morning. All of the advertising hit the newspapers last week and I’ve been spreading the word on Facebook and any other social media sites I can think of.” Emily looked at a bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling. “The only thing we won’t have is the chandelier over the staircase. The lighting company rung to say they’re still having trouble finding the one I ordered. The electrician’s coming back tomorrow to pull the wiring into the ceiling and we’ll have to make do with the lighting we’ve got.”

Nicky frowned. “Are you disappointed?”

“There are so many other things happening that I don’t have time to be disappointed. Apart from the chandelier, everything’s going to plan. Tess is doing the catering for the opening and Cody’s in charge of the wine and fruit juice.”

“What about background music?” Nicky asked.

“All covered. Gracie sat down yesterday and went through her music.”

Nicky glanced at the second floor. “Do you think Gracie’s all right? She hasn’t said very much in the last hour.”

Emily left the polish on the sales desk and headed toward the stairs. “Gracie? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she yelled back. “I’ve put all of the threads and things away and I’ve put your magazines on another shelf with your design sketches.”

When Emily reached the top of the stairs, she saw Gracie sitting in front of the cutting table looking through a large album.

Gracie looked over her shoulder and smiled. “These sketches are beautiful. I didn’t know you could draw.”

“It helps when I’m thinking about different ideas for designs.”

Gracie turned the page. “I can see how you’d enjoy thinking about this person.” She turned the book toward Emily and showed her a sketch of Alex.

She’d drawn the picture two years ago. They’d been at a rodeo in Dallas. She studied the sketch; the lines, the light and shadow, the way he held her spellbound with his smile. Excitement and joy spilled off the page and straight into her heart. This was Alex. It was what he lived and breathed for. What made him happy.

She thought about the photos Molly had taken, compared the differences, saw the similarities. He was a bull rider, businessman and now a carpenter. He loved his family and friends as fiercely as the bull riding that kept him in regular contact with Doc Johnson. This was his world.

“I must have been bored.” She smiled at Gracie to hide the hurt, the betrayal she’d felt over everything that had come next. The knowledge that she’d let herself and Alex down by believing the worst and not giving him a chance to explain. Or trusting him enough when he did.
 

“Bored or not, it’s a great sketch.” She closed the book and pushed her chair back. “I’m feeling tired. Would you mind if I head home?”