LITMIR.BIZ

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by supplier you mean Melissa, you’re crazy as a loon. She’s never worked a day in her life.”

      “That just proves how little you know. I’ve bought a number of her creations, including the garden gate you tripped over.”

      When he merely looked at her, she sagged her shoulders in frustration. “I know you’re shy around women, Whit. But you’re not a mean person. In fact, I can’t think of another man with a heart as soft as yours. That’s why it’s so hard for me to understand why you’d intentionally hurt a woman who has suffered such a tremendous loss, one who is struggling so hard to pull herself out of debt.”

      “I did nothing but walk away. If that offended her, that’s her problem, not mine.”

      “Her husband was your friend,” she reminded him stubbornly. “And from what Rory has told me, your best friend. If for no other reason than out of respect for Matt, I would think you could put aside whatever differences you might have with his wife, and offer her the kindness and support she needs and deserves.”

      Macy may not have gotten the explanation or apology she thought she deserved from Whit, but she had succeeded in making him feel like a heel, a trait he didn’t feel he deserved.

      Yeah, you do, his conscience argued. Macy was right. Matt was your friend. Your best friend. And friends take care of friends.

      Scowling, Whit lifted a bale of hay high and heaved it onto the growing stack in the barn’s loft. “Matt was a friend, all right,” he muttered as he reached for another bale. “The minute I turned my back, he stole my girl.”

      Your girl?

      Yes, dammit, Whit thought angrily as he hefted the bale up. She might have been Matt’s girl first, but she’d broken things off with him and started dating Whit. And she’d still be Whit’s girl now, maybe even his wife, if Matt hadn’t stolen her away.

      What did he do? Hold a gun to her head? Hog-tie and gag her? Surely, Matt isn’t the only one to blame.

      His scowl deepening, Whit shoved the bale onto the stack. No, Melissa owned a part, as well. She’d made Whit fall in love with her. Even claimed to love him, too. Then, the minute he’d left town, she’d run off with his best friend.

      There. You admitted it. Matt was your best friend. Y’all sure had some good times together. Remember the night the two of you stole a six-pack of beer out of Matt’s parents’ refrigerator and got drunk as skunks out by the lake?

      Grimacing, Whit tugged off his work gloves. Yeah, he remembered that night, all right. And others, as well.

      With a sigh, he sank onto a bale of hay and dropped his forehead to his hands, unable to stop the memories from surfacing.

      Growing up, he and Matt had all but lived together, spending almost every waking hour in each other’s company. Before his mother had married Buck and was still working at the café in town, she had arranged for Whit to go home with Matt after school each day. He and Matt would play some ball, watch a little television, wrestle on the floor. His first black eye was courtesy of a left Matt had thrown that Whit hadn’t dodged in time.

      Even after his mother and Buck had married and Whit had moved to Buck’s ranch, he and Matt had managed to continue their friendship. Matt was the one who had listened to all of Whit’s frustrations of living in the Tanner household. And it was Matt who had helped him devise the scheme the time he’d planned to run away.

      And it was Matt who was the first to appear at the Tanner’s door the day Whit’s mother was killed in a car wreck.

      He gulped back emotion as an image of Matt as he’d looked that day formed in his mind—standing on the porch, his hat in his hands, tears streaming down his face. Whit had needed Matt that day. Needed the comfort and strength his friend had offered as he’d faced the biggest tragedy of his life.

      And he’d needed his friend in the days that had followed, when Whit had announced to Buck that he was moving out and Buck had refused to let him go. Since Buck had adopted Whit, by law he was Whit’s legal guardian. And there was no way Buck was going to let Whit leave when he represented a source of free labor for the Tanner ranch.

      Matt had stood by Whit, with him, helping to make the intolerable tolerable. Without his friend, Whit wasn’t sure he would’ve survived those last few years he’d lived under Buck’s dominating rule.

      Guilt tried to settle itself on his shoulders again, but he stubbornly shook it off. He wouldn’t feel badly for not helping Matt’s widow. He didn’t believe for a minute that Matt had left Melissa in the dire financial straits his family insisted she was in. Hell! Matt wasn’t an extravagant man. He might have come from money, but he was a good ol’ country boy with simple taste and simpler needs, same as Whit.

      At least that was the kind of man Matt had been when he and Whit were still running around together. Had he changed that much over the years?

      Whit dropped his hands to his thighs with a sigh of defeat. It didn’t matter if Matt had changed or not, he told himself as he pushed to his feet. Matt had been a friend, a good friend. And just as his conscience had reminded him, friends took care of friends.

      Or, in this case, a friend’s family.

      Melissa laced her fingers together to keep from wringing her hands as she trailed the trainer, watching as he threw his gear into the back of his truck. He was the third man she’d hired for the job in the same number of days and the third one to leave without so much as laying a hand on the horse.

      “I know War Lord can be difficult,” she began uneasily.

      “Difficult?” he repeated, then barked a laugh and climbed into his truck. “Lady, that horse isn’t difficult. He’s plumb crazy!”

      “Please,” she begged. “Give him another chance. I’m sure he’ll settle down once he gets used to you.”

      Heaving a sigh, the man braced his arm on the open window frame and leaned out. “Look, lady,” he said kindly. “That horse is never gonna amount to anything. You can’t even sell him for glue, what with him refusing to load into a trailer. If you want, I’ll put him down for you. No charge.”

      Sickened by the suggestion, she stepped back, shaking her head. “N-no. I won’t put him down. I can’t.”

      With a shrug, he pulled his arm inside. “It’s your nightmare.”

      She watched him drive away, sure that he was taking with him her last hope of paying off her debts. She’d already contacted every trainer within a hundred-mile radius. There was no one left for her to call. It was all she could do to keep from sinking to the ground and crying like a baby.

      But crying wouldn’t solve her problems. She’d shed enough tears over the past four months to know that crying wouldn’t get her out of the mess Matt had left her in. Aware of that, she squared her shoulders and turned for the house and the studio behind it.

      Throughout her marriage to Matt, the studio had served as a refuge for her as well as a place for her to work. Today, more than ever, she needed the solace it offered. As she stepped inside, walls painted a soft, soothing blue seemed to wrap themselves around her and pull her in. Everything in the room, from the braided rag rug on the floor to the ceiling fan that stirred the air, she’d chosen herself. More, she’d purchased them with money she’d earned with her own two hands. And it was that feeling of independence, that sense of accomplishment, that carried her on to the worktable that stood on the far side of the room.

      Stopping in front of the table, she ran a hand lightly over the edge of the half-finished frame she’d been working on prior to the trainer telling her he was quitting. The tiles of broken china that covered half the frame’s face were cool to the touch and rough with dried grout. A pile of unused tiles lay near at hand, waiting to be fitted into place.

      Here was the familiar, she thought as she slid onto the stool. The sure. Everything else in her life might be in chaos, but in this one room was peace.

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