The Horse Trainer's Secret Read online

  “A lot can happen in a couple months.”

  She managed not to react.

  “Take a look.” He unrolled the thick sheaf of papers on a desk and anchored the curling edges with a stapler on one side and a broken brick on the other. “Gage forwarded your latest comments on Chance’s design to me, but I didn’t have an opportunity to work some of them into the revised design until this week.” He swept his palm flat across the blue-tinged paper.

  He had long fingers. Square-tipped. Nails cut short and neat.

  The way he’d used those fingers—

  She curled her own fingers into her palms, cutting off the memory.

  She leaned in to look at the drawings, bringing her closer to Nick. “Some of them?” She was irritated that she couldn’t ignore the solid warmth of his body, and it sounded in her voice. “You left out the most important change of all. The stable is exactly the same size as it used to be.”

  “We can’t expand the stable without relocating it.”

  She straightened again and pushed her fingers into her back pockets, edging away from him. The man radiated heat like a stovepipe. “So relocate it.”

  “Things don’t happen just like that.” He snapped his fingers.

  “Where Gage Stanton is concerned, that’s not true. When this all started out, it was just supposed to be a guest ranch. A small one. Two months later and it’s basically a full-blown resort. Which is why I told Chance Michaels the horse barn had to be expanded, too. Not only does it need to house twice as many horses, but twice as much tack and feed and everything else.”

  Nick looked amused. “April and Jed are the ones overseeing this particular project. Gage and Stanton Development are sitting in the back seat on this one.”

  She barely managed not to snort. She knew from Rory that Gage had personal reasons for keeping his direct involvement in Weaver to a minimum. That he was intent on keeping his distance from a grandmother who didn’t even know he existed. She figured that was why he was letting someone else do the driving. Still, if it hadn’t been for him, Megan wouldn’t be part of the project at all.

  And right now, she wasn’t entirely grateful.

  “Considering everything,” Nick said, “they’re keeping things here pretty low-key. They’re not trying to turn Weaver into the next Aspen or even the next Angel River.”

  Even Gage Stanton’s golden touch couldn’t create another Aspen out of Weaver, Wyoming. But another Angel River? “Have you ever been to Angel River?” The guest ranch was located near the Wyoming/Montana border. The nearest town, Wymon, made Weaver look like a sprawling metropolis.

  “No, but Gage had a lot to say about it.”

  She could well imagine that, considering he’d met Rory there. “Well, whatever, just based on the size of the operation, if there isn’t a bigger stable, then you’ll need two of them. Otherwise there won’t be space for the number of horses a place this size will require. A guest ranch isn’t a guest ranch without a good string of horses. And a good string of horses requires proper stabling.”

  “A second barn isn’t in the plans, either.”

  On any other day, she would have been more than happy to argue the point. But with her stomach still feeling dicey, she merely shrugged. “The plans are wrong, then.”

  He turned and leaned his hip against the desk, crossing his arms over his chest. “You look nice in red.”

  She pressed her lips together. “What’s that got to do with the stable?”

  His gray eyes held hers despite her intense desire to look away. “Nothing.” He waited a beat. “Why didn’t you call me back?”

  Her breath evaporated inside her lungs. “Back?”

  “After the morning you disappeared from Weaver, I left you a couple messages at Angel River.”

  Three messages. He’d left three of them over the course of a month and Rory’s dad had delivered each one himself. But after that, they’d stopped, and she’d been relieved. An occasional one-night stand was her style. A guy who called and called and called was not. “I don’t think this is the place to talk about that.”

  He leaned forward, dropping his voice conspiratorially. “That’s why you shouldn’t have ignored the messages I left for you.”

  “I didn’t ignore them.”

  “You chose not to answer them. Same thing.”

  She finally managed to drag her gaze free of his. “Depends on your point of view.” They hadn’t closed the trailer door and she stuck her head out, looking at the framed-in building straight ahead. It would be the main lodge when it was finished, its multiple stories built straight into the steep side of the magnificent mountain.

  “I’m surprised that April and Jed aren’t here yet.” She glanced at the plain watch strapped around her wrist. “Your cousin was the one who called this meeting.”

  “They’ll be here.” Nick braced his hands on the doorjamb on either side of her to look out also, and he might as well have been touching her. She was tall, but he was taller, and she could feel his words stirring the hair at her temple.

  She didn’t want to think about the other stirrings he caused.

  That was what had landed her in this state in the first place. Well, that and her own impetuous decisions. She couldn’t very well pretend she hadn’t been a more-than-willing participant.

  “They’re still living in Otis’s cabin up on the Rad,” he said, “so it’s not like they have to drive up the mountain for the meeting.”

  She glanced beyond the lodge, where she knew the small, ancient cabin was located. The only thing she’d seen of it had been the photo that April had shown her. But since then, April had regaled her with the whole story of how Jed had more or less inherited the Rambling Rad Ranch from an old guy named Otis Lambert. The ranch wasn’t much to speak of in terms of cattle. But when it came to the land it encompassed on Rambling Mountain? It was immense. As for the rest of the mountain that wasn’t part of the Rad, Lambert had deeded it to the State of Wyoming, which had then declared it a new state park. That had made the adjacent Rambling Rad far more valuable in terms of tourism than it had ever been as a cattle ranch.

  Thus, Megan assumed, the decision to build a guest ranch.

  “Have you taken over the designs for rebuilding their cabin, too?”

  “My father and I are working on it together.” Nick’s right hand moved from the doorjamb to settle on her shoulder. Lightly. Naturally.

  As if he had a right.

  It didn’t matter that his touch set off a delighted ripple. Megan shifted slightly, hoping that he’d move away, but he didn’t. She stepped forward, out of the doorway altogether, until his hand fell away. Then she turned around to face him.

  He didn’t even bother hiding his smile, as if he knew exactly how consternated she felt.

  “Look,” she said firmly, “what happened between us was just a one-time thing. One and done,” she added for emphasis. “Got it?”

  He didn’t look at all chastened, though.

  And dammit, there was that twinkle in his eye again. The sun wasn’t shining in through the doorway, so that didn’t explain it this time.

  “I’ll agree that it was a one-night thing,” he said. “But hardly one and done. If you hadn’t snuck out of the motel room when I was still sleeping, it could’ve been three and four—”

  She shot up a warning hand, but he broke off, anyway, looking past her to where April and Jed were approaching from the direction of the construction site.

  He stepped around Megan and out the door. “Morning! I was about to send out a search party for the two of you.”

  “Blame Jed,” April said cheerfully. Her long red ponytail was blowing in the breeze as she practically skipped along the wooden walkway with Jed and a huge, shaggy, wolfish-looking gray dog trailing behind her. “He just had to have waffles for breakfast this morning.”

/>   “And you didn’t bring me any?” Nick spread his hands. “And here I thought I was your favorite cousin.”

  Given what Megan knew from April’s chatter over the last few months, the other woman had more cousins than Carter had pills. First cousins. Second cousins. Whatever cousins.

  In the family department, Megan only had her grandmother, Birdie.

  April gave Nick a smacking kiss on the cheek before brushing right past him to hug Megan. “I’m so excited you’re finally here! This is going to be so much fun, all of us working together.” Without waiting for a response, she turned on the heel of her bright orange rubber boot and spread her arms wide, encompassing the construction site. “Isn’t it amazing what’s already been accomplished?”

  “Gotta make hay while the sun shines,” Jed said. “So far, it’s been a mild spring, but you never know around here.”

  April bounced on her toes. “Want a tour?”

  Her enthusiasm was hard to resist. And anything that interrupted Nick from going on about the night he and Megan had spent together was okay with her. She didn’t usually consider herself a coward, but for now, avoiding the subject was the best approach. “Definitely.”

  “Hold on.” Before she could take a step, Nick disappeared into the trailer and returned with an armful of hard hats. “Nobody allowed in the construction zone without one.” He handed two to his cousin and her husband, then dropped a third on top of Megan’s head. It fell over her eyes and he pulled it right back off, made a few adjustments and set it back in place. Then he nodded with satisfaction and they all headed toward the skeletal framework of the main lodge.

  Megan wouldn’t be working on the lodge itself, but she couldn’t help being fascinated as they made their way through the structure. It was easy to visualize the completed building thanks to Nick’s vivid descriptions and the amazing artist’s rendering that had been hanging in the construction trailer.

  She tried to imagine taking the same tour with Chance Michaels and being this excited, but couldn’t.

  When they reached the part of the lodge that would eventually cantilever out beyond the mountainside, Megan propped her arms on a crossbeam of lumber and looked down. The breeze was stiffer here, blowing her hair around beneath her hard hat, and she wished she’d worn it in a ponytail, like usual. She dragged it out of her eyes for the umpteenth time as she leaned forward a little to peer down at the jagged, rocky landscape. “So where does the state park actually start?”

  April came up next to her and pointed. “Just a little above Lambert Lake.” Her arm swept to the right. “Extends all the way down to the highway. The highway department’s been working on grading an access road, but lack of a road hasn’t stopped people from already starting to come to the mountain. Can’t blame their curiosity, considering the land has always been private property.”

  Far below, Megan could see the whitish-blue glimmer of water nearly obscured by steep outcroppings of rocks and tall evergreen trees. When she turned her head, thanks to the fact that the structure around them possessed no solid walls yet, she was able to look upward toward the mountain summit. “A lot of it is still private property, isn’t it? Do you and Jed own all the rest?” She’d never thought about a mountain being owned by anyone, but supposed it was no different than any other piece of property.

  “We own it along with Gage,” April said with a wry laugh. “Jed’s still going to run the Rad. It’ll still be a real cattle ranch, and then any of the guests who want that traditional ‘ranch’ experience can work the cattle with him. Whatever that entails.”

  Megan couldn’t hide her amusement. “I’m guessing you don’t work the ranch with him.”

  “Oh, I love horses and all that. I can work a roundup. But inoculations and castrations and branding?” Her eyes were filled with mirth. “Not on my particular top-ten list of things to do.”

  She looked over to where her husband and Nick seemed thick in discussion. The gray dog had disappeared somewhere along the way. “There’s not a lot of cattle—Otis’s spread was small in comparison to most around here—but the ranch is still important to Jed because it was important to Otis. But Jed also feels pretty strongly that the mountain shouldn’t be off-limits to the public the way it’s been for generations. This way, we have the best of both worlds.”

  “And making a profit in the process,” Megan added dryly.

  April laughed. “Well, there’s that, too. Gage wouldn’t be involved otherwise. I used to work for him. I was scoping out the situation on Rambling Mountain for Stanton Development when I met Jed, so I am well aware of Gage’s business sense.” She shook her head. “I’m still stunned that he turned out to be as human as the rest of us and fell for Rory. Delighted,” she emphasized, “but stunned.”

  Megan looked over at Nick and Jed to see they’d hopped up onto a wooden beam easily six feet off the ground. Both men had dark hair. Nick was slightly taller. Jed looked slightly rougher. But they both seemed perfectly at ease as they walked along the beam.

  Megan’s stomach rolled a little and she exhaled carefully, turning again to look back down to the lake.

  The landscape really was stunning. “Where’s the ski run going to be?” She knew they were aiming to have the place open for business well before the Christmas holidays.

  April pointed toward the slopes on their right. “There will be two to start, but in time there could be more. If things go well here and we can figure out how to actually get it built, there could be a smaller winter resort up at the summit with at least another three runs.”

  A summit that Megan couldn’t even properly see because of the clouds ringing it. “The only skiing we have at Angel River is cross-country.”

  “You like to ski?”

  Megan shrugged. “I prefer horses to most everything,” she said truthfully. “Including people.”

  “But you deal with people all the time at Angel River, don’t you? Organizing all the activities?”

  “Taking a bunch of guests on daily trail rides or teaching ’em how to get on a horse for the first time is easy. Making sure they’re having fun during the times when their butts aren’t in a saddle is a small price to pay for getting to be around the horses.” From the corner of her eye, she saw Nick nimbly hop down from the beam.

  April chuckled. “I have a fair number of family members who think like you—horses, horses, horses.” She moved over to where Jed had jumped down after Nick. “Including this one here.” She patted her husband’s chest and followed up with a kiss on his jaw.

  “What’s that for?”

  “Just because you’re cute.”

  “Think we know which one of us is cuter,” he replied as his arms surrounded her.

  “Come on.” Nick touched Megan’s elbow, making her jump. “Once they get going, they’re likely to keep at it for a long while.”

  “I think he sounds jealous,” April said to Jed.

  Megan quickly moved away from Nick. She couldn’t help but remember that night in March. When it came to “keeping at it,” there wasn’t any reason for Nick to feel jealous.

  And now she was pregnant with his baby.

  Which was something she had no intention of admitting.

  Not yet, at least.

  As far as she was concerned, what happened with her body was her business. And when she did tell him, like everything else in her life, it would be on her terms.

  Without looking at him, she retraced their steps back to the trailer. “The tour was nice,” she said briskly. “But about the stable...”

  Chapter Two

  “So how’d it go this morning with your horse trainer?”

  Nick set his briefcase on the glass table and looked at Vivian Templeton. Even at home on a normal Monday in May, Vivian was dressed in a two-piece designer suit, complete with pearls at her neck and diamonds at her wrists. More often than not, the dim
inutive, white-haired woman was demanding and a general pain in his neck. But despite all that, she was one of his favorite people. Which was why, when he’d already finished designing the public library that she’d been determined to see built in Weaver, he’d agreed to work on her newest pet project even though his plate was already overflowing, thanks to having to take over nearly all of Chance Michaels’s projects.

  Not that he was complaining about the Rambling Mountain job. That involved a silver lining he couldn’t resist.

  “Megan Forrester isn’t my horse trainer.” He pulled out a pen and a yellow pad of paper from his briefcase, sat down on the cushioned bench opposite Vivian and pushed the enormous green leaf from the plant behind him away from his head. Meetings with Vivian were often conducted in her conservatory—the fancy word for her overgrown indoor tropical garden that by all reasoning should have failed to grow at all here in the heart of Wyoming.

  “You want her to be.”

  He ignored that remark and flipped through his notes on the yellow pad, but Megan’s image floated in his mind, making it difficult to concentrate on his chicken scratchings. For a month after she’d left Weaver, he’d tried to reach her at the guest ranch where she worked. He’d had no other means to contact her.

  He hadn’t given up when she’d refused to return his calls. He’d just been busy. And he’d known she’d be returning in a few months’ time, anyway.

  Nick Ventura was nothing if not a patient guy and Megan would now be staying in Weaver for weeks.

  He clicked his pen a few times as if that would help get the tall, blue-eyed blonde off his mind. “I never should have told you about her.”

  “Ah, but you did.” Vivian set her china cup on a saucer; it was just as likely to be filled with bourbon as with tea. The diamond rings on her fingers glinted in the sunlight angling through the tall windows. “And no backsies, as they say.”

  He couldn’t help but laugh even as he glanced through the windows where Rambling Mountain stood tall and picturesque in the distance. “Let me guess. That’s one of Delia’s terms.”