Her Right-Hand Cowboy (Forever, Tx Series Book 21) Read online

  Felicity crossed her arms before her, a monument of disapproval. “Do not blame me if you wind up getting sick,” she said.

  “I wouldn’t dare,” Ena murmured under her breath.

  Finished, she pushed the plate away from her and got to her feet.

  “Thank you,” she called out to the housekeeper as she hurried to the door.

  Felicity shook her head again, following Ena to the front door.

  “A woman is always supposed to keep a man waiting,” the housekeeper informed her. But Felicity knew that she was wasting her breath, addressing the air. Ena was already gone.

  Even though she had hurried out, Ena heard what Felicity had said. To be honest, part of her agreed with the housekeeper. That was how the game was usually played, at least in the beginning.

  But she didn’t want to play any games. She never had. What she wanted was to be able to enjoy Mitch and his company for as long as possible, especially since in her heart of hearts she knew she was supposed to be on a schedule.

  She was fairly certain that was how Mitch saw it. He probably assumed that in six months—less now because she’d already put in some time—she would go back to her world. Depending on the situation, she would have either sold the ranch to someone local or, more likely, kept the ranch herself. In that case she would have Mitch run the place for her while she went back to Dallas to do what she did best: work with numbers.

  The moment she laid out her plan for her herself, she suddenly realized that she really wasn’t as sure about it as she had initially been. Ten years ago she had thought that she wanted to get as far away from ranching as she could. Her goal all along had been to prove to her late father, looking up—or down—from whatever vantage point his life had placed him in, that she was up to the challenge he had laid down for her.

  Once that was done, she would go back to life the way it had been.

  Except the idea of resuming the life she had had just a little while ago was not as pleasing to her as she had once thought. But that didn’t change the fact that she assumed Mitch still thought that she was leaving the moment the six months were up.

  Maybe that was why he’d felt free to fool around with her the way he had. Because, from that perspective, there were no strings attached to what they had done, no promises made in the heat of passion that needed to be kept. Last night had been about two consenting adults enjoying one another.

  Except that she suspected one of the adults had enjoyed what happened last night a little more than the other had.

  And if Mitch became even the slightest bit aware of that, she felt in her heart that it could very well scare him away.

  Which meant that she had to keep a lid on things no matter how tempted she might be to say something, Ena firmly told herself.

  But it definitely wasn’t going to be easy. Ena could feel her heart leaping up the second that she saw him.

  * * *

  For his part, Mitch saw her coming from half a field away. He was grateful he had that much time to steel himself off.

  He was certain that Ena wouldn’t want anyone else to know about their night together, as magnificent as it had been. After all, she was the owner here and he was, at bottom, just a hired hand. The last thing he wanted was for her to get the impression that he had made love with her thinking that would give him some sort of advantage or even leverage over her.

  But damn, just watching her walking toward him had him feeling things, stirring up his insides. It had him wishing that he had spent more time perfecting a poker face.

  When she reached the area where he and the others were, Mitch touched the brim of his Stetson as if to tip it to her. “Morning, Miss O’Rourke. Wasn’t sure if you’d be joining us this morning,” he told her.

  “Morning,” Ena echoed. “Why wouldn’t I?” she challenged. “Horses don’t care if it’s Sunday.” She looked at the horseshoes that were piled up on the ground. “What are you doing?” she asked, directing her eyes as well as her question toward the other wranglers more than Mitch.

  “We’re shoeing some of the new foals,” Wade told her, nodding toward a heavyset wrangler who had on a black leather apron. Ena assumed he was the blacksmith. “The ones that are fully grown,” Wade added. “We thought if you sold them at auction that would bring in enough money to keep the ranch going awhile longer.”

  That surprised her. “You didn’t tell them?” she asked, looking at Mitch.

  Mitch merely smiled in response. “I figured it was your news to tell.”

  She would have thought that those would be the first words out of his mouth the second he gathered the other wranglers around him this morning before they started working.

  “Tell us what?” Billy asked, looking from Ena to Mitch.

  “Go ahead,” Mitch urged, nodding at her.

  “We saw the bank manager at Murphy’s last night—” she began.

  “Miss O’Rourke saw the bank manager,” Mitch corrected.

  She just continued as if he hadn’t said anything, “And the man agreed to extend the note on the ranch as long as we start showing a profit.”

  She decided to keep the details about the herbal cure by Mitch’s mother to herself for the time being. It was enough that Mitch knew what she was planning to do with it—and why.

  “Can we?” Wade asked, directing the question to Mitch.

  Mitch in turn looked at Ena, redirecting the question to her. “I think we can,” she said with confidence.

  “All right, men, you heard the boss lady. Now, get back to work,” Mitch ordered.

  As if on cue, activity restarted all around him.

  Ena stood off to the extreme right as a number of the wranglers took charge of several of the horses, leading them to a fenced-off area to await being shod. A few of the horses were skittish and had to be calmed.

  Mitch has called her boss lady, she thought. Was that for the men’s benefit, or did he actually think of her that way himself? If he did, then they couldn’t really be on equal footing, Ena thought. She didn’t want that. She didn’t want him feeling that she was above him. That would adversely affect their relationship.

  But maybe Mitch didn’t think of them as having a relationship, she thought, her stomach twisting as the possibility occurred to her. Maybe it really was just about a good time for him and nothing more.

  It should be that way for you, she silently insisted. It’s about time you loosened up.

  She’d never had the sort of wild, carefree adolescence the way she knew that a lot of others had had. She’d been too busy toeing a line once her mother was gone. And after that, once she left home, she had been too busy trying to create a life for herself. Somehow, there had never really been any time to just be young, to explore her own feminine wiles.

  Was this how it went between men and women? A good time was had without any promises of something more? She honestly didn’t know. She had never had anyone for guidance when it came to this, no one to look to as a role model.

  Her mother, whom she adored, had never taught her anything except how to defer to her father. There had to be more to a relationship than that.

  But maybe she was expecting too much from Mitch. Maybe he was just in it for the fun of it and not anything else.

  Okay, she decided, she could do that. She could just ride this wave and see where it would take her, enjoying this exhilarating ride for as long as it continued, Ena told herself.

  Their eyes met for a second and then Mitch crossed over to her. He didn’t want Ena to feel that he was presuming too much, or that he felt that last night had given him a special status with her because he knew that it hadn’t.

  Still, he didn’t just want to leave it at that without saying a word, or worse, pretending that last night hadn’t happened. Because it had. It had been glorious, lighting up his life the way it had never been lit before. />
  He had deliberately left her bedroom while she was sleeping this morning because if he had stayed, he knew he would have been tempted to make love with her all over again. And while they had made love twice the night before, there was something about daylight that forced things into perspective. The last thing he wanted was for her to feel pressured. Nor did he want her to reject him. He really didn’t know how he would be able to deal with that.

  But there was certainly nothing wrong with his coming up to her at the start of a new day and asking, “How are you feeling?”

  That had come out of the blue, Ena thought. Rather than give him a glib answer, she asked in a quiet voice, “About?”

  Mitch shrugged vaguely. “Everything,” he said, feeling that it was best not to cite anything in particular.

  She flashed a noncommittal smile. “I’m feeling just fine.”

  Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything, he thought. “Good. Me, too.”

  Talk about vague, Ena thought. They could be discussing their feelings about the price of grain or the state of the weather. Was he being vague like this to protect her or himself?

  She didn’t have a clue. She knew what she wanted him to be saying and doing, but only if he wanted to, not because she did.

  Ena took a breath. She needed to sort all this out for herself, calmly and rationally. And then, and only then, would she be able to come to Mitch and have that conversation that she felt they both needed to have.

  Because being vague like this actually made her feel trapped in limbo.

  “You sure you’re okay?” he asked her, keeping his own voice low.

  “Yes,” she answered crisply, her eyes meeting his. “I’m sure.”

  “Then I’m going to get back to work,” Mitch told her. He turned on his heel and went walking back to his men.

  She watched as Mitch took measured steps away from her. She couldn’t help wondering if the man was aware that his hips moved ever so temptingly with each step that he took.

  She found herself suddenly reliving last night. Ena promised herself that she wasn’t going to allow what had sprung to life between them to be over, no matter what it took.

  Like a flower in the desert, it needed to be watered and nurtured and she intended to do both.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Well, it was official, Ena thought. It was more than three weeks since she and Mitch had made love. More than three weeks since he had so much as even touched her in a chaste, impartial way.

  At this point she was struggling not to let anger get the better of her because she could now add the term one-night stand to her dating resume.

  There was no other way to describe what had happened between her and Mitch, because ever since that one glorious, delicious night, the ranch foreman hadn’t even tried to hold her hand—or any other part of her for that matter.

  Ena felt let down and hurt, and had no idea what to make of it because she had never been in this position before.

  It certainly didn’t help that Mitch acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened between them. The way he behaved—since that night—anyone watching him would have said that they were nothing more than two people working on a horse ranch together.

  In the beginning, she thought she had done something wrong. After a while, though, she decided that he was the one to blame. So when Mitch spoke to her, she did her best to give him a frosty shoulder.

  But that gave her no satisfaction. With each passing day, more and more she felt as if she were drowning in a barrel filled with ice water. Drowning and without a single clue how to save herself.

  If something didn’t happen soon, she knew she was going to go down for the third and final time.

  Each day she got up and went through the motions of working on the ranch, while deep within, she felt as if her heart were breaking apart. It was an effort to try to keep her mind on what she was doing.

  And then, just when she felt as if she had reached a crossroads, she saw Cash pulling up in front of the ranch house in his car.

  Standing close by, Mitch saw the lawyer’s car, too. “Wonder what this is all about,” he said.

  Seeing the car, Ena’s first thought was that Cash had found an addendum to her father’s will. The way her luck was going, there were probably more hoops for her to jump through before she could finally become the sole owner of the Double E.

  When she didn’t say anything in response to his question, Mitch asked her point-blank, “Trouble?”

  Ena didn’t even look his way. She had to harden her heart when it came to this man and it had to start now.

  “Nothing that would concern you,” she retorted, walking toward Cash’s vehicle.

  “Ouch,” Wade said, overhearing. “That one drew blood.” He looked at Mitch. “You two doing okay?”

  The answer to that was obvious. “Don’t you have work to do?” Mitch asked.

  Wade had always known when to step back. “Absolutely,” he said to the foreman and began to move toward the corral.

  Mitch stood where he was for a minute, then decided that if the lawyer was here because of something that had to do with the ranch, as foreman he would hear about it sooner or later, so it might as well be sooner rather than later. With that thought in mind, he crossed quickly toward Ena and the lawyer. The latter had just gotten out of his vehicle.

  Mitch got there in time to hear Ena ask, “What brings you here, Cash?”

  “Good news. Possibly,” Cash qualified. “That’s why I wanted to deliver it to you in person.”

  Because of the way things had been going, her patience was at a low point. “Well, what is it?” she pressed. “My orchestra has the day off, otherwise I would have already signaled for a drumroll,” she told him. Then she immediately said, “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I’m a little testy lately.”

  “Well, this just might make you less testy,” Cash told her with an encouraging smile. “You have an offer to buy the ranch.”

  “An offer?” she asked, confused. “But I haven’t put up the ranch for sale.”

  “No, but Edward Larabee seemed pretty eager to annex this ranch to make it part of his spread. It seems that he sees himself as being at the head of a horse empire. Someone must have told him that you’re not all that thrilled to be back here ranching,” Cash speculated.

  Ena was acutely aware that Mitch was standing there, taking all this in. That made her even more uncomfortable. “Well, in any case, I can’t sell the Double E to him yet. You know that.” She pressed her lips together, feeling trapped. “The terms were that I had to stay and work the ranch for six months,” she reminded him needlessly.

  Cash nodded. “Larabee’s aware of that. He’s more than willing to wait, as long as when you are ready to sell, you consider his offer before the others.”

  “Others?” Mitch asked, surprised. “There are others?”

  “No, not yet,” Cash said. “But once word gets around that the Double E is for sale, there might be others.” Cash reconsidered his statement. “As a matter of fact, there most likely will be. I just wanted to come out and let you know about this in case you’ve started feeling like you’re going to be trapped here.”

  She didn’t want that getting around. “I never said I felt trapped,” she protested.

  Until she had arrived back in Forever, she had been very careful about keeping all her personal feelings to herself.

  “You didn’t have to,” Cash told her kindly. “It was there, in your eyes, for anyone to see.” He could tell that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. He decided that it was best to wind this up. “Anyway, Larabee wants to be first in line when your required six months are up.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to be getting back.”

  As he got into his car, he said, “Congratulations. This is good news, I hope.” Then, starting up the engine, he drove away.r />
  “Larabee’s got a hell of a nerve, making that offer,” Mitch said as he watched Cash’s car disappear down the road.

  “Why would you say that?” Ena challenged.

  “Why?” he echoed, wondering why she sounded so irritated. “Because you’re not going to sell.”

  She gave him a withering look. “I’m not?”

  “No,” Mitch declared. And then he looked at her face more closely and realized that maybe he was taking things for granted. “Are you?”

  Ena shrugged. “It’s definitely worth thinking about,” she answered. “I mean, there’s really nothing to keep me here.”

  “Nothing to keep you here?” he repeated, stunned. She wasn’t serious, was she? “You were born here.”

  Ena tossed her head, dismissing his argument. “That’s not enough of a reason to keep me here.”

  He stared at her, completely confused. “I don’t understand,” he said. “I thought when you convinced Prescott to extend the loan on the ranch—and he agreed,” Mitch stressed, “that you’d made your mind up to stay here and run the place.”

  Shrugging, Ena turned away and began to head to the house. “Not everything is what it seems,” she informed him coldly.

  That just succeeded in making him even more confused. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She didn’t bother turning around. “Whatever you want it to.”

  She was almost at the house when she heard Mitch call after her.

  “Bruce’ll miss you.”

  That stopped her for half a second. “He’ll get over it,” she said, continuing toward the front door.

  Mitch stood there, feeling something crumble inside him with each step she took. For one long moment, he debated letting her go, but then something urged him not to, to give this “thing” between them—whatever it was—one last shot despite all his noble attempts at restraint to the contrary.

  Ena had reached the house and walked in through the door, afraid that she would break down before she got inside. She had taken two steps into the house when the door behind her flew open again.