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“Yes, ma’am. That should have told me all I needed to know,” she added, embarrassed, “but I kept thinking you were stepbrother and stepsister. Then today it all clicked when he was downright ugly with some of our staff today and not as caring and personable as he normally is with his patients. It started reminding me of when I found out that my fiancé had been cheating on me. I’m ashamed to say how unpleasant I was to be around.” She placed her hand across her chest.
I couldn’t picture her being anything but sparkling and kind.
“I started thinking back about all the times I’d seen you together and I remembered the first time I saw you two together at the café and I thought you were a sweet couple before I knew about how you were related. Sawyer doted on you. I realize now he did that a lot. He always wanted to be near you, make sure you were taken care of. My Ryder used to do the same for me.” She began to tear up.
My eyes started leaking too. He really had doted on me. Had I been reading him wrong this entire time?
Shelby took my hand. “I’m so sorry, Emma. You must think I’m a hussy.”
“I don’t think that at all.” Okay, so maybe I had, but I didn’t now. “Sawyer and I were never really together, and we never will be. You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“Oh, but I do. I was going on and on about him that night in the tent. And there you were being so nice to me and listening to my personal pain and teaching me how to pee in the woods.”
Bridget snorted a bit. I was liking her more and more. Any woman who could snort was a winner.
Shelby took a breath and held up her hand as if she was taking an oath. “I promise from here on out, I will only have a professional relationship with Sawyer and I will do everything in my power to see that you two are rightfully back together like you belong.”
“No. No. That won’t be necessary.”
“It is absolutely necessary. That’s what best friends are for.”
When had we become best friends?
“Shelby, really, there’s nothing you can do.”
“Oh, honey, you have no idea what I can do.”
“Whatever it is, I’m in.” Bridget gave me a wicked grin.
I shook my head. “Ladies, if neither of you have noticed, my last name is Loveless. It’s my curse, and nothing anybody does will ever change that.” Not even my mom could.
Shelby gave me a coy smile. “You know what my memaw used to say about curses?”
I shook my head.
“She said they are nothing but self-fulfilled prophecies—they only work if you believe them.”
Well, I was a believer.Chapter Twenty-OneI would have thought talking to Shelby was the most interesting conversation I was going to have all week, but I was wrong. Again.
My phone rang the next day while I was in my dingy office working on some analytical data. I was surprised to see Macey’s name on the screen. I ignored it at first, thinking she must have butt dialed me with that bony thing she passed off as a rear end. Besides, I had nothing to say to her. She called me three more times. It finally annoyed me enough that I answered.
“Why are you calling me?”
Sniffles filled my ear. “Emma,” Macey’s pathetic voice squeaked.
Someone died. I knew it. Why else would she call? Was it awful that I had a list of who I was hoping it would be? Then panic set in. Please don’t let it be Marlowe or Dad. Sure, I didn’t like them right now, but I loved them even if they didn’t love me.
“What’s wrong, Macey?”
“We need your help.”
“We?”
“Marlowe and me.”
“Why are you calling me for help? Why don’t you ask Josephine or Ashton?”
Macey’s sniffling increased. “They can’t help us.”
“Why?”
“Because no one knows where Ashton is, and Josephine and Dad aren’t speaking to each other.”
Oh, really? Huh. “I still don’t understand why you are calling me. Didn’t you tell me to mind my own business?”
“I didn’t say that. Marlowe did.”
“What did I say?” Marlowe yelled in the background.
“You told Emma to mind her own business.”
“I told you she wouldn’t help us,” Marlowe responded.
“Please, Emma. We need you.”
“You both have a lot of nerve asking me for help right now. What is it you need help with anyway?” I thought I should ask before I outright told them no.
“I know we haven’t been very nice to you. I’m sorry.”
“Because you want my help?”
“No, Emma, everything is a mess right now. Almost all the wranglers have quit, and Dad can’t find anyone to replace Frankie. No one in town wants to work at the Ranch. Several guests have left.”
I wasn’t surprised, but it broke my heart. “What can I do about that?”
