Shared By the Cowboys by Cassie Cole

39

Rebecca

It was thrilling telling Mason that I was going to stay on the ranch. I had wanted to tell them last night during Thanksgiving dinner, but I didn’t work up the courage to do so. This way felt better, in private out on the property.

He smiled so widely when I told him, you’d have thought I agreed to marry him.

And then Cody called on the walkie-talkie, destroying the moment.

“Becca, do you know a woman named Terry?”

My stomach sank and a chill ran up my spine.

“Terry?” I asked on the radio. “Why? What’s up?”

“That’s the visitor. She just pulled up in a car and knocked on the door. She’s askin’ about you.”

“Who’s Terry?” Mason asked me.

I ignored him and replied to Cody, “Put Terry on. I need to talk to her.”

“She’s talkin’ to Blake right now. Somethin’ about an agent?”

Oh no.

I moved without thought, untying Wildfire and mounting up.

“What’s wrong?” Mason demanded. “Rebecca, who’s Terry?”

“I’ll explain later,” I said. “Stay here. I’ll be back in a minute.”

I urged my horse into a gallop, and he was eager to obey. We raced back to the ranch like it was on fire.

No, no, no, I thought while leaning low over Wildfire’s neck. I could feel it all slipping away from me. The lies I’d told the boys, and the lies I’d told Terry. It was all crumbling down around me, threatening to bury me alive.

If I can get there quickly, I can fix it, I thought. If it’s not too late…

A black Lincoln sedan with rental plates was parked in front of the house. I rode Wildfire right up to the porch, hopped off, and tied him to the railing. My boots thundered on the wood as I ran inside.

They were in the living room. Blake was leaning against the far wall, arms crossed defensively over his chest. Cody sat in one chair, leaning forward while holding his hat with both hands. A fire was roaring in the hearth, filling the room with orange light and heat.

Sitting across from Cody was Terry, my agent. She was a sharp, wiry woman who looked like she would have been perfectly comfortable working on a ranch. She was dressed in what we called Montana formal: jeans, cowboy boots, and a blouse on top. Her silver hair hung down her left shoulder in thick waves.

The moment she locked eyes with me, I knew it was too late.

“Terry,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m your agent,” she replied simply. “I don’t drive to LaGuardia in holiday traffic and jump on a plane to Montana for all my clients, but for you? I’d do anything.”

“Is it true?” Cody asked. “You’re an author? Writing a book?”

“Of course it’s fucking true,” Blake growled. “She looks fucking guilty.”

I turned to Terry and managed to say, “Can I speak with you privately?”

“Fuck that,” Blake said. “Anything you want to say to her, you can say to us. Unless you’re gonna keep lying.”

The fireplace crackled angrily. It felt like the ceiling was too low, and the walls were closing in on me. Trapping me with my lies.

I turned to the guys. “I was going to tell you soon…”

“Stop talking about doing it,” Blake warned, “and do it.”

Cody nodded, a hurt expression on his boyishly-handsome face.

I stood very still while forcing myself to speak. “I’m a fiction author. I write suspense novels for a living. I accepted the ranch hand job so I could do research for my next book.”

“We know all that.” Cody couldn’t look at me, so he stared at my feet instead. “Terry already told us.”

“What she didn’t tell you is that everything has changed,” I said in a rush. “I didn’t expect to feel this way about you. About all three of you. Soon after I got here, I stopped caring about some novel. Everything that has happened on this ranch… it’s so much more than what I originally planned.”

I never heard Mason come inside, and his voice behind me was startling. “I knew you looked familiar when you first showed up. So all of this was a lie?”

My knees grew weak as I turned around. “No, not all of it! Just the reason I took the job. A lie of omission. Everything that has happened since I arrived is real. What I feel for you is the most real thing I’ve ever felt in my life.”

Mason’s face was an expressionless mask. “Why should we believe that?”

“Because…”

“Because you say so?” he demanded. “You lied the moment you got here. You’ve lied since then. How do I know you’re not lying right now?”

“Because I… I love you.”

I had wanted to say the words for a while now, but they slipped out of my mouth in desperation. I meant them, though.

I looked over my shoulder at the others. “I love all three of you. Mason, Cody, and Blake.”

“No you don’t,” Mason replied.

“I do! I would never say that if I didn’t…”

Mason shook his head and walked past me into the room. He stood against the wall with Blake. They looked united on this, scowling across the room at me.

Terry cleared her throat and stood. “Now that everything is out in the open, we can discuss the waiver you three need to sign. In exchange for your express written permission to allow this book to be published, we’re prepared to offer five percent of gross royalties…”

“Money?” Mason demanded. “That’s what all of this is about?” He looked at me. “You think you can fix this by writing a check?”

“I… I don’t…” I stammered. I looked from Mason, to Blake, to Cody. It was obvious now. I had ruined my chance with them. There was nothing I could do now.

Unable to face their betrayed stares, I turned and fled from the house.