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The rest of the weekend passed in a blissful haze and Tulsi practically floated back to school Monday morning. Her friends, Mia and Bubba, knew immediately that something was up, but Tulsi refused to say a word, wanting to keep what she’d found with Pike to herself for a little longer. She’d waited so long for him, she wasn’t ready to share him with the world just yet.
The weeks before graduation seemed to drag with unnatural slowness, even as weekends with Pike flew by. They spent their time alone riding horses, learning each other’s secrets, and making love like it was their mission on earth. After her period, mercifully, came right on time, Tulsi drove into San Antonio to get a prescription for birth control pills. By the end of April she and Pike were taking full advantage of their newfound freedom, making love in the river during a swim, on the side of the trail while they watered the horses, and in the back of Pike’s truck after Tulsi’s graduation, the night before Pike left to go on the road with his team.
They stayed together until the sun came up, and Pike couldn’t put off leaving another moment.
“I’ll call as soon as I can,” he said, kissing her goodbye. “I love you.”
“Love you, too,” Tulsi said, trying not to cry as she watched him drive away. Things were going to be harder with him on the road, but what they felt for each other was real, the kind of love people wrote songs and stories about. She had no doubt—her and Pike’s love was going to last.
She believed that with every fiber of her being…right up until the day he proved she’d been a fool to trust him with every piece of her heart.
But by then, it was too late. Her fate had been sealed that warm spring day in Springfield, Texas, when Pike Sherman kissed her, and put her permanently under his spell. No matter how hard the coming years proved to be, or how lonely she often felt, Tulsi never stopped loving him. Even as she lied to him, pushed him away, and learned to hate him, love was there, pulsing beneath the stormier emotions, refusing to be snuffed out.
Loving Pike was a habit she couldn’t break, as much a part of her as her passion for horses, her devotion to her daughter, and her belief that there is beauty in almost everything, if you just take the time to stop and look for it.
But on the hot July night when she locked eyes with Pike for the first time in seven long years, Tulsi wasn’t looking for beauty. She was looking for strength, and the will to cut her heart free of the man who had ripped it out of her chest once and for all.
CHAPTERONE
Tulsi
Seven years later…
The setting sundipped closer to the butte on the western side of Old Town Lonesome Point, casting the main thoroughfare of the historic site in a blood-red glow, sending a shiver of foreboding up Tulsi Hearst’s spine.
This patch of Texas desert had once been home to Wild West cowboys and outlaws. Now, it was littered with hot dog wrappers, red solo cups, and discarded arm bands—leftovers from the two-day benefit concert that had ended only hours ago. But Tulsi had the cleanup crews stabbing trash and had supervised the removal of the temporary fences meant to keep rowdy concert-goers from damaging the historic structures. All that was left was to pack up the ropes and dividers that had allowed the talent to move from stage to stage without mixing with the crowd and she’d be ready to head for home.
She glanced down at her watch. Five after six. She had approximately forty-five minutes to finish up her duties, dash to her truck, and get out of Dodge without risking a run-in with the last person she wanted to see.
A few days ago, she’d flirted with the idea of running into her old flame “accidentally-on-purpose” after his meet and greet with the fans who couldn’t wait to rub elbows with one of the most famous pitchers in major league baseball. But now that she was mere minutes away from a potential Pike Sherman sighting, she couldn’t believe she’d ever been so stupid. She didn’t want to see Pike; shehatedPike.
Or at least shewantedto hate Pike…
She wanted to forget that he was her first everything and the only man who had ever made her feel like she was flying with her feet still on the ground. She wanted to forget that, for one perfect spring, he’d been her world, and she’d been certain the love they’d found was going to last forever. She wanted to forget the way she’d pined for him for years after any self-respecting woman would have moved on, fallen in love again, and settled down to build a life with a man who cared about her. Remembering her weakness made Tulsi feel like a fool, but it was understanding how wrong things could go if Pike got too close to her life in Lonesome Point that transformed her rib cage into a vice that squeezed at her heart.
She had far more to lose than pride. That she had let it slip her mind, even for a day, was terrifying.
No matter how deeply he’d hurt her, Pike still had the power to make her feel like a lovesick schoolgirl, a fact that should have sent her running for the safety of her parents’ ranch hours ago. She’d promised Mia that she would supervise cleanup while Mia got ready for the meet and greet fundraiser, but Tulsi could have pled sick. Mia would have understood.
For a moment, the urge to run was so great that Tulsi almost dropped the rope in her hands and made a break for her truck.
“Woman up,” she muttered to herself instead, continuing to coil the thick divider rope around her arm. “You made a promise, and you’ll keep it.”
She had to keep this promise. Knowing she’d done her best to help Mia raise money for the ghost town restoration would make it easier to back out of the float trip later this week. Mia was looking forward to her pre-wedding float trip with her fiancé and closest friends as much as most brides-to-be looked forward to the big day, but there was no way Tulsi would survive twenty-four hours of forced proximity to Pike.
She would have to see him at the wedding shower trail ride, the rehearsal, and the wedding Saturday afternoon. That would be more than enough torture, especially considering her daughter Clementine would be home from camp on Saturday to join the wedding party. Clementine and Mia were as thick as thieves, and it had been assumed from the moment Mia set the date for her wedding that Clem would be the flower girl. If Tulsi had even hinted that Mia should find another little girl to do the honors, her best friend would have immediately known that something was wrong.
Tulsi’s only shot at keeping her secret under wraps was to keep her chin up and pretend this week was business as usual. And if Mia or her fiancé, Sawyer, or any of Tulsi’s other friends noticed she seemed a little off, she could always blame her weird mood on her business woes.
Last Friday she’d learned that Head Starts for Good Hearts, the charitable organization that had provided funding for her Equine therapy business, was under new management and had decided to direct their efforts elsewhere in the community. They’d given her sixty days’ notice, but that wasn’t nearly enough time to find alternative funding. Grant boards were notoriously slow. Any grants she applied for now wouldn’t be awarded until Christmas or later. By then, she’d be out of business. Even if she could convince her dad to let her stop paying rent on the barn for a month or two, the upkeep on the horses would be too much for her to float with her few paying clients.
She was on the verge of losing everything she’d worked so hard for and ending up back where she started when she’d come back to Lonesome Point after college as a single mother with barely a penny to her name. Clem was going into first grade this year, so if Tulsi found a job that kept school hours she wouldn’t have to pay for childcare or ask Mia for extra babysitting help. But the thought of working as a waitress or a sales clerk at one of the stores downtown, while all the kids who had flourished under her treatment lost their connection to the horses that had brought them self-confidence and healing, was enough to break her heart.
She had an appointment to talk to the new chair of Head Starts—a man she’d gone to high school with, who she hoped would empathize with her position—on Monday. God willing, she’d be able to convince him to restore funding. If not, she would simply have to find another way to keep the business afloat. She was working miracles for her kids and she wasn’t going to give up on them without a fight.
Most people assumed shy, reserved Tulsi was a pushover, but when it came to the precious things in life, she had a fiercely protective side.
Speaking of precious things…
