Page 31 of Finding Her Billionaire Cowboy Mismatch

Stephen was quiet a while. Out past the barn door a couple of horses worked at the hay. He found the words down in the dirt at his boots and brought them up one at a time.

“I was nine when my folks went off the road,” he said. “And I… I just couldn’t get over it.”

Chad waited patiently for him to continue.

“There was an insurance settlement. The relatives I hardly knew were…” He stopped and took a minute to gather himself. “Well, they were showing up in their good clothes. Said they wanted to help look after the poor little boy.”

Chad nodded as if he knew exactly what was coming next in the story but he was waiting for Stephen to tell it in his own words.

His mouth was dry. “What they really wanted was the insurance money. Earl ran the last of them off the porch with a shotgun. After that it was just him and me.”

Finally Chad spoke. “That was the right thing to do. Glad your grandfather stood up for you.”

Stephen nodded. “Me, too.”

“What happened after that?”

Stephen looked up and drew in a long breath. “The old man raised me on one rule over all the rest. A man stands on his own legs and never takes a dime he didn’t earn, because money is the bait that draws out the worst in folks.”

“You did have a front-row look at greed in the worst hour of your life. That was good advice.”

“Then Earl passed and left me the land and the mineral rights. But all I know is what my grandad taught me so I haven’t been able to spend a dime of it.”

“You’ve sure kept your mouth shut about it. I thought you were just a hired hand who’d inherited his grandparent’s home. Good job.” Chad smiled and shrugged.

“It all was working for me. Until I met the first woman I wanted be honest with. I wanted to walk away from the safety of keeping my mouth shut. So I picked safe.”

Chad was quiet a moment, the way a man goes when a trouble of yours has knocked something loose of his.

“I’ll tell you a short story, and then you can get out of my barn,” he said. “When Annie came to work for me, I had no business looking at her twice. Her boss, near ten years older, and her green out of college. I looked anyhow. And the minute it got around that I was sweet on the new girl, every man I respected pulled me aside to set me straight.”

He raised an eyebrow and tilted his head. “You know exactly what they all said. They told me she was after the ranch, that a girl that green doesn’t stay but bides her time, that I’d be a fool to sign half of all I’d built over to a pretty thing who’d be gone inside three years.” Chad shook his head. “And fool that I was, I listened, because some doubting corner of me already half believed a woman such as Annie couldn’t truly want a sunburnt bachelor and his cows.”

“Here’s the part nobody tells you,” Chad said. “The warnings always sound wiser than what you want. Fear talks in a mighty reasonable voice. You think it’s good sense and prudence, and the whole time it’s nothing but fear. And you talk yourself out of the best thing that ever happened to you.”

“So I went cool on her. Hunted up reasons we wouldn’t make it, told myself I was protecting us both when all I protected was my own pride. She near gave up on me.” He looked at Stephen square. “Every man who warned me had it dead wrong, and the only one who had it right was the woman they were warning me about.”

“How’d you get past it?” Stephen asked.

“I didn’t get past it. What a man does is quit letting it do the steering.” Chad worked a knuckle. “A man doesn’t stop being afraid. He stops letting the fear choose the road. There’s a difference, and Annie’s worth that difference every day of the week.”

It landed on Stephen the way a fence post lands when a man finally sets it deep, solid and done. He’d taken every fear a scared boy ever earned and a grown man ever nursed, and he’d hung the whole load on Elise, who had never once given him cause. She’d only wanted the truth, and he’d handed her everybody else’s crime to answer for.

“I have to fix it,” Stephen said.

“You do.” Chad picked up his wrench. “You going to go say all that to her? It’s a fine speech.”

“No.” Stephen settled his hat on his head. “She’s had enough of that.”

Stephen stopped for a minute to think about his next words.

“I think… um, speeches come up lacking to a woman like Elise,” he said. “I’ve got to show her.”

“You got a notion what that thing is?” Chad asked.

“Not yet.” Stephen almost let a smile through. “But it’ll come. I imagine it’ll be the one move that costs me what I’ve held onto longest.”

“There’s Earl’s boy,” Chad said, and handed him the bearing to seat in the baler.