The Bridal Path: Sara (16 page)

She held up a hand. “More than enough.”

“You don’t seem to hear me. Maybe you should stay off of horses.”

He might as well tell her to stop breathing, Sara thought angrily. Especially now when so much was riding on her horsemanship skills. She held her temper in check and shook her head.

“It was nothing,” she insisted.

If he knew what she was really up to, he’d probably go into cardiac arrest right before her eyes. “Stop being such a worrywart,” she pleaded. “Nothing awful’s happened to me yet. Just some bumps and bruises. I know for a fact you’ve suffered worse.”

“Which just proves that there’s always a first time,” he said grimly.

“Enough, please. I’m a grown woman. It’s my decision. I love to ride and I’m not about to stop.”

He sighed. “Okay, okay.” After a moment, his expression brightened. “So, what do you know about this woman in Jake’s life?”

Sara almost choked on her scrambled eggs, before managing a reply. “Not a thing.”

“But you said—”

“I was just speculating,” she insisted. “Jake’s an attractive man. He’d be a terrific catch. How could there not be a woman in his life?”

“Seems to me he’s gone out of his way to avoid getting involved up until now,” her father observed.

Sara grinned. “You were pretty fast on your feet, too, until Mama came along,” she reminded him.

A nostalgic gleam lit her father’s eyes. His expression softened. “Indeed. I suppose even the wildest soul can be tamed when the right woman comes along.”

Struck by an unexpected insight, she asked, “You still miss her, don’t you?”

Her father reached for her hand and squeezed. “Every minute of the day.”

The sorrow in his voice was enough to soothe some of Sara’s anger over his decision to sell Three-Stars and flee to someplace with no memories. She could understand that kind of heartache. She had a feeling when things with Jake ended, as they almost inevitably would, her own heart would ache just as long and just as deeply.

Which made keeping her love for him a secret more important than ever. She wouldn’t have everyone regarding her with pity or, worse, amusement that she had dared to think that a man like Jake Dawson could possibly fall in love with her.

Chapter Eleven

A
s the days passed without anyone discovering what she was up to, Sara grew increasingly certain that her secrets were safe. No one except Ashley knew about her relationship with Jake, if that’s what it could be called. Only Mary Lou and Zeke knew about their outrageous bet. With any luck at all they would make it all the way to the end without interference from anyone in her overprotective family.

She prayed a dozen times a day that the secrecy would last. Unfortunately, Riverton was a small town. Sooner or later, she feared that someone would get wind that she was sneaking off every day trying to learn to stay on the back of a spitting-mean horse.

And when they did, there would be a lot of fascinated questions. She doubted anyone would assume that Trent Wilde’s daughter had suddenly decided to take up a rodeo life-style. Once gossip started, her father and Dani were bound to hear it and the meddling would begin.

Worse than worrying about discovery, though, was trying to stave off Jake’s increasing attempts to talk her out of competing at all. Ever since her last fall when she’d stupidly gotten tangled up in the reins, he’d been more intent than ever on getting her to call it quits.

Perversely, each overly solicitous offer to end their challenge made her more determined than ever to see their bet through. At some point, it had gone beyond merely claiming the ranch. Her pride had kicked in. She wanted to impress Jake, at least in those rare moments when she wasn’t inclined to throttle him for his suddenly overbearing protectiveness. He was rapidly getting to be worse than her father or her sister on that score.

If he started hovering over her at her lessons, she was going to have to kill him. She had told him as much just that morning. Her adamant declaration had kept him from coming with her to Zeke’s, but in the rearview mirror, she’d seen that his worried gaze had followed her until she drove out of sight. A foolish woman might have assumed he really cared. She was more certain he was just worried about the burden of guilt he’d feel if something happened to her.

No doubted he’d maintained phone contact with Zeke all morning. Zeke had had his cell phone glued to his ear all during her lesson and he’d been mumbling into it the whole time, until even Mary Lou had grown impatient and told him to hang up or leave. Patches of color darkening his cheeks, Zeke had stuffed the phone in his pocket.

Even with all the distractions, Sara had managed to stay on the bronco for a full five seconds, her longest time ever. But with only a little over a week to go, that wasn’t nearly long enough. Those last three seconds loomed impossibly before her.

When she finally dragged into the house at the end of the day, Annie poured her a tall glass of lemonade and set a plate of freshly baked gingersnaps in front of her. Her purposeful gaze indicated she wasn’t gearing up for a few minutes of idle chitchat.

“Maybe it’s time you told me what you’ve been up to,” she said mildly.

Startled, Sara stared into the housekeeper’s implacable face. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Horsefeathers!” Annie said succinctly.

“Really,” Sara insisted. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Maybe you can tell that to your father and he’ll believe you, but that’s because he doesn’t look for trouble. I look at you and I look at Jake and I see trouble brewing with a capital
T.
”

Sara tried to buy time by biting off a piece of gingersnap and chewing it very slowly. She sipped at her lemonade. When Annie’s expression grew increasingly impatient, Sara sighed and tried to figure out an explanation that would satisfy Annie’s curiosity without giving away the truth.

Before she could come up with a single half truth, Annie said, “I already knowing you’re sleeping with him, so you could start with that.”

Sara’s mouth gaped. “How on earth did you know that?”

Annie gave a curt little nod of satisfaction at the blurted response. “Then it is true.”

Sara’s shoulders sagged. “You didn’t really know anything, did you?”

“I was ninety-eight percent certain, but Jake denied it. You’re not as good at skirting the truth as he is.”

“Maybe those are the lessons I ought to be taking from him,” she muttered under her breath.

“What was that?”

“Never mind.”

Annie didn’t pursue that, but she was hardly through with her inquisition. Sara could tell from the housekeeper’s expression that she might as well settle back and prepare for a cross-examination that would rival anything ever done in a courtroom.

Annie had always considered the three Wilde girls her own. She’d bossed them around, bandaged their cuts, stuffed them with milk and cookies and surrounded them with her generous love. Her exuberant nature had been a stark contrast to their mother’s more formal brand of nurturing.

She considered meddling her God-given right. No one in the household had ever dared to argue with her, not even their father. In fact, Sara had always wondered if Annie wasn’t more suited to her father than her mother was, despite the very deep love the two had shared. Annie never hesitated to speak her mind, something the genteel, well-mannered Jessica Wilde had done rarely.

“I suppose this has something to do with your daddy selling the ranch to Jake?” she said now. “You figuring on keeping a place here by sleeping with the new owner?”

Thoroughly indignant at the unfair accusation, Sara opened her mouth to explain, but Annie held up her hand. “Not that I blame you for that. What your father is doing today is a crying shame.”

Sara’s heart plummeted. “Today?” she said weakly.

Guilt spread across Annie’s face. “You didn’t know?”

“Know what?”

“That they’re in town at the bank right this minute closing the deal.” Suddenly Annie’s arms closed around her in a fierce hug. “Oh, baby, I’m sorry. I thought for sure you knew.”

Tears spilled down Sara’s cheeks. She brushed them away impatiently. “I knew it was coming,” she said, half to herself. Her heart aching, she stared at the housekeeper. “I just didn’t know that today was the day. Jake never said a word.”

“And naturally your daddy didn’t have the gumption to, either. I swear, that man has the sensitivity of a cactus.”

The image made Sara smile, when little else could have.

“Maybe that’s because deep down he knows how badly he’s going to hurt me, hurt all of us.”

“Or maybe it’s just because he’s an old fool,” Annie said vehemently. “I should have given him a piece of my mind before things got this far along, but for some reason I thought…” She shook her head. “Well, never mind what I thought. It was just a foolish old woman’s imagination, I suppose.”

Sara was too upset to wonder what Annie had left unspoken. “I think I’ll go up to my room now,” she said dully. “I need to be alone.” She shot a wry look at the housekeeper. “Of course, I suppose it’s not even my room by now. I wonder when Jake will want me to go.”

Annie gently brushed the tears from her cheeks. “Now that’s one thing I know you don’t have to worry about. He told me you’d always have a place here.”

But unless it was as the owner of Three-Stars or as Jake’s wife, Sara couldn’t see how she could possibly consider staying on. The importance of the upcoming bronc-riding contest had just escalated.

* * *

Upstairs, feeling more lost and alone than she ever had before, Sara settled into a rocker and sat staring out the window, watching for her father or Jake to return. She wondered which one of them would actually tell her. Or would they maintain their silence on the subject until her father literally packed his bags and moved out sometime in the dark of night?

It seemed like hours before she finally spotted a swirl of dust in the distance. She watched as a car finally came into view, but it wasn’t either her father’s or Jake’s. Instead, it was Dani’s.

The minute her sister came upstairs, Sara realized that some part of the secret was out. The worried expression on Dani’s face gave it away. The only question was just what her sister had discovered.

“You found out, didn’t you?” she said bleakly.

“That you’ve lost your mind,” Dani said with a curt nod. “Indeed I did. There I was in the general store a half hour ago, delivering my pies, when what do I hear but Mrs. Comstock and Mrs. Wingate gossiping to beat the band about you being over at Zeke Laramie’s day in and day out taking bronc-riding lessons. Sara, what on earth are you thinking?”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Sara muttered, but Dani was on a roll and didn’t hear her.

That inauspicious opening was followed by a litany of worries and frustrations, peppered with uncharacteristic expletives that had Sara’s eyes widening.

“Of all the noodle-headed ideas you’ve ever had, this one takes the cake,” she declared eventually.

Sara waited for more but that seemed to conclude the most long-winded tirade Dani had ever delivered to her younger sibling. She was pacing back and forth so fast, Sara was developing a crick in her neck from trying to follow her.

“Stop being so blasted independent,” Dani added. “Stop trying to fight the world all by yourself, and let me help for once. Tell me what this is about. I know you didn’t dream up this cockamamy idea for no good reason.”

Tired of keeping everything bottled up inside, drained by the knowledge of what her father and Jake were up to at this very minute, Sara spilled everything. Her words tumbled out so fast that Dani clearly had difficulty keeping up. When Sara told her about Jake’s insistence that she marry him if he won the contest, Dani regarded her with wide-eyed astonishment. Distress clouded her face.

“And you agreed to that?”

“Don’t you see, it’s a win-win situation,” Sara argued.

“Win-win,” her sister repeated incredulously. “How on earth do you figure that?”

“If I win, I get the ranch. If I lose, I still get the ranch.”

“And that sneak, Jake Dawson,” Dani reminded her ominously while still pacing.

“How bad can that be?” Sara asked staunchly, then added what was possibly the most massive understatement she’d ever uttered. “He’s presentable, a little contrary maybe, but I can handle that.”

“Given your own nature, I’m sure you can,” her sister replied dryly. “Call me old-fashioned, but I thought marriage was supposed to be about love.”

“It would be. I love this ranch.”

“I was referring to Jake.”

“We’ll get used to each other.” Actually, there was plenty of proof that that, too, was a massive understatement. She didn’t think Dani was ready to hear that just yet.

“It’s nice to hear you have such high expectations for the relationship.” Dani paused smack in front of Sara and leaned down to stare straight in her eyes. “Have you bloody well lost your mind? You could be killed. What good will this stupid ranch do you then?”

Sara winced. Jake had told her the same thing a dozen different ways. Zeke had stopped voicing the same concern, but it was written all over his face every time she climbed onto a horse. Hearing it spelled out by her sensible older sister, who had no personal stake in the bet’s outcome, made it seem more ominous.

“I won’t be,” she insisted firmly.

“You won’t be,” Dani echoed, then shook her head. “Your confidence isn’t anywhere near as reassuring as you seem to think.”

“I stayed on for five whole seconds today,” Sara boasted. “Zeke says I’m getting better every day.”

“Zeke Laramie has the brains of a mosquito. I wouldn’t rely on his opinion.”

“He was a bronc-riding champ when Jake was still in diapers.”

“And he fell on his head a few too many times, if you ask me,” Dani snapped. “The whole bunch of you have lost your minds. We’ll see what Daddy has to say about all of this.”

She whirled and marched toward the door, intent on blowing Sara’s scheme out of the water.

Sara finally lost it. “Danielle Wilde, if you say one word about this to Daddy, I will never speak to you again,” Sara declared, halting her sister in her tracks. To her surprise, when Dani turned back there were tears in her eyes.