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A Cowboy for Holly
Maureen Child
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Holly Banks sat in the spring sunshine and tipped her face up to the sun. It was good to be back in New York City. And if she kept telling herself that, she might even believe it in, say, a year or two.
“You’re doing it again.”
“Hmm?” Holly glanced at one of the two women sitting with her, enjoying their lunch break. “Doing what?”
“Sighing,” her friend Katie pointed out. “You’ve been doing that a lot since you got back. I thought vacations were supposed to make you feel good—not depressed.”
Frowning a little, Holly argued, “I’m not depressed, I’m…”
She wasn’t sure what she was. Happy to be home, sure. Grateful to be at work again at her job in Waverly’s Auction House, you bet. Glad to see her friends and share lunch while they watched Manhattan parade past, of course.
But…there was a part of her that was still in Montana on the Bar G luxury guest ranch. And she had the sneaking suspicion that it was her heart.
“I’m fine,” she insisted. “Just easing back into life in the fast lane.”
“Uh-huh.” Charlotte “Charlie” Potter gave her a hard look, then shook her head. “So why don’t you say what’s really going on, Holly. You’ve been back a week now and you’ve hardly told us anything about the ranch. You saved up for a year to go on that vacation and you don’t have pictures? Stories? Tales of adventure?”
“Or romance,” Katie put in as she crumpled up her lunch bag and tossed it into a nearby trash can.
Holly took a breath and held it. She couldn’t tell her friends what had happened to her in Montana. It still felt too raw. Too…tender. So instead, she smiled and took a sip of her soda before giving them just enough, she hoped, to satisfy their curiosity.
“Let’s just say that cowboys are everything I dreamed they would be.”
Charlie gave a little sigh, her soft heart filling in all of the blanks. But Katie narrowed her gaze on Holly and said, “No details?”
“No,” she answered. She didn’t want to give them the details because she didn’t want to think about a certain cowboy. Didn’t want to remember cold nights and chill mornings as dawn stained the mountains with glorious color. Didn’t want to remember horseback rides through meadows so beautiful they’d taken her breath away. Or the picnics by a swiftly flowing river. Didn’t want to think about dark brown eyes and long, slow kisses that set fire to everything inside her.
It had all been a lie anyway, she reminded herself firmly. He had pretended to be something—someone—he wasn’t. She had assumed he was just a simple cowboy. A regular guy. But he wasn’t, so there was no point in torturing herself with the memories, was there?
The sting of hurt was still with her and Holly knew it always would be. She could pretend everything was all right. She could lie to her friends and tuck the hurt aside during the day. But at night her dreams were filled with what-might-have-beens. With images of him. With the memory of his touch. His smile. His—
“Earth to Holly,” Katie said, giving her friend’s knee a shove. Then she frowned. “Hey, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Holly insisted. And she would be. One day. All she had to do was concentrate on her job. Her life. Her future. All right here in the biggest city in the world.
The Fifth Avenue sidewalks were packed solid. New Yorkers on their lunch breaks hurried through the crowd while the tourists who flocked to Manhattan every year slowly meandered, getting pushed and shoved out of people’s way. The tourists lifted their gazes to admire the reach of the tall buildings, they took pictures and risked their lives stepping off curbs into Manhattan traffic.
These were the sights and sounds of home. Taxis blasting impatient horns, a hot-dog vendor shouting at a boy trying to slip away without paying, and on the corner a guy selling knock-off purses. It was spring in the city and busy enough to keep even Holly’s mind occupied. She hoped.
“Well,” Katie murmured from beside her, “looks like Montana’s not the only place to find a cowboy.”
“What?”
“Oh, my…” Charlie’s words were a whispered hush of admiration.
Holly followed their gazes and her heart jolted. He was taller than everyone else on the crowded sidewalk, and the wide-brimmed cowboy hat he wore set him even further apart from the people surrounding him.
She couldn’t see his face yet, but Holly felt his presence in every cell of her body. It was the same zip of electricity she had felt from the moment she met the tall, broad-shouldered cowboy. Beside her, she sensed Katie and Charlie both turning their curious eyes toward her, but she couldn’t tear her own away from the man fast approaching.
Even from a distance, she saw his brown eyes flash as his gaze locked on her. She took a deep breath, hoping to steady nerves that were already fluttering to life in the pit of her stomach.
When he broke free of the crowd and headed straight for her, Holly knew she was in big trouble. She should be running away from him, but all she wanted to do was throw herself into his arms.
“Holly?” Charlie whispered. “You okay?”
“Really not,” she answered.
She hadn’t expected this. Never would have thought that he would come here. To New York. Why would he come? Why would he follow her? And why did he have to look so good?
She could hardly breathe as she watched him come closer. Her heartbeat quickened even faster and every breath was rapid and shallow. Her stomach was doing somersaults and her mouth was dry as a desert.
He stopped in front of her.
His jaw was tight, his eyes squinted against the midday sun, and he was oblivious to the stir he was causing. Every woman he passed