And Cowboy Makes Three

Who had enough wherewithal to convince Jo to bend the rules of the auction?

Maybe a better question would be—how?

Jo tended to rule with an iron fist when she was in charge of an event—which she usually was. Between the two of them, Jo and her husband, Frank, the head of the town council, kept Serendipity running smoothly.

The old redhead was as stubborn as the day was long, and most people in town wouldn’t even conceive of trying to change her mind once she’d gone and decided what was what. There was no arguing with her. And she was a stickler for rules—at least when it suited her.

Apparently today it suited her to make up her own new set of rules.

Jo snorted and shook her head, laughing at the negative reaction of the townspeople. She didn’t even try to explain herself.

Not good old Jo Spencer.

Instead, she gestured for Rowdy to remove his hat, hitched up the rope in her palm—the one waiting for the winning bidder to lasso their catch with—and expertly flicked the noose around Rowdy, tugging the line tight around his shoulders.

Angelica was impressed with Jo’s roping skills. The old woman ran a café, not a ranch. Clearly, she’d been practicing, and apparently, Angelica guessed, whatever was happening here with Rowdy was the reason. She’d known beforehand that she would have to trick rope this particular pony.

Without so much as looking back to see if he was following, she snapped the line taut and led him off the platform, the crowd parting before her.

He was being ushered off to who knows where like a lamb to the slaughter, Angelica thought.

Rowdy didn’t resist. Why would he?

He had to be at least as curious as the murmuring crowd as to the identity of the woman who’d purchased him. Someone had cared an awful lot to go to the trouble, not to mention expense, of buying Rowdy in such an unconventional fashion.

Angelica didn’t even want to know. And she absolutely ignored the sting of envy that whipped through her.

She had no right.

Rowdy was in her past, something she would rather not revisit right now.

Or ever.

She had enough on her plate just caring for Toby—and now trying to figure out how best to put the Carmichael property to market and still honor Granny’s last wishes.

She appreciated the money she’d been left along with the land, and she knew Granny had been thinking of Toby when she’d written that part of her will. But Toby was special and would never run a sheep farm—and Angelica certainly couldn’t. She was the furthest thing from a rancher as it was possible for her to be.

She was a pastor’s kid—and not a very good one—who had grown up to be simple hotel banquet server. Not the best job ever, but it paid the bills. And as a single mother, she couldn’t afford to be picky.

The obvious solution was to sell the ranch that had been in the family for generations, and then pocket the money to use on Toby’s future—a future that didn’t include working with sheep.

Gramps had died young of a heart attack and Granny’s only son, Angelica’s father, Richard, had chosen the pastorate over sheep farming, leaving Granny Frances to work the land well past the time she ought to have retired.

Angelica would have been able to save the day merely by marrying Rowdy as she’d once intended to do. They’d planned to join their land together, since his family were sheepherders, as well.

But she hadn’t.

And they didn’t.

Instead, she’d run away and in the process dashed the hopes and dreams of more than one person.

That for even one moment she’d considered being a rancher’s wife without the slightest idea of what that meant, how to work with the sheep and tend to the land, was just one of many ways she’d showcased her youthful ignorance.

It had been all about love, as defined by a woman too young to know how to recognize it.

Pie in the sky, a twinkle in her eye and zero common sense.

Whatever love was, that couldn’t have been it.

Rowdy probably thanked the Lord every day that she hadn’t saddled him with her utter incompetence as a rancher and a life partner, not to mention her bad reputation across town.

No. As bad as it had been, and still was, she had done him a favor, even if he now hated her for it.

She’d cut those ties. Then her parents had virtually disowned her. Granny was all she had left after she’d left town, and for many years, she’d been too ashamed even to reach out to her.

After she’d discovered she was pregnant with Toby, she had made her life right with Christ and she had reached out for Granny, who had welcomed her back with open arms and a loving and forgiving heart. But Angelica had never gotten back home to see her.

Not in time. Granny had passed away when Toby was born. She hadn’t known that Toby would have special needs, be preciously different, and that God meant him for other things.

Extraordinary things.

But not sheep farming.

That was one prayer that would never be answered. Not as Granny had wanted it to be, anyway.

Angelica sighed. No matter how she looked at it, nor how much grief she felt at letting Granny Frances down, selling the ranch was the only conceivable answer to her dilemma—the only one that worked in the best interests of both Angelica and Toby. She was sorry not to be able to fulfill Granny’s wishes, but that was just how it had to be.

She had to think of Toby first.

She still had no idea why Jo had brought her here to the auction, when she should be at Granny’s ranch putting her affairs in order.

As far as she was concerned, it was well past the time for her to leave the community green and the auction behind and return to Granny’s ranch house, where she could mull over her problems in private, release the thunder of emotions that had been hovering over her like a huge black storm cloud all morning.

With her decision made, she turned away from the platform and started walking back toward the street where she’d parked her sedan, knowing Frank would give Jo a ride home.

At the moment, the effervescent old redhead had her hands full with the auction—and, more specifically, with a rope full of Rowdy.

“Angelica May. Wait!”

Angelica skidded to a halt at Jo’s use of her middle name. The only other person in the world who had called her Angelica May had been Granny, God rest her soul.

Tears sprang unbidden into Angelica’s eyes at the many happy memories that instantly flashed through her mind. Granny loved Serendipity get-togethers and would have been bidding up a storm on behalf of the senior center—probably snatching up one of the good-looking young bachelors from right under the nose of a pretty, single woman.

And then, knowing Granny, she’d have him mucking stalls for her just so she could admire his muscular physique. Gramps had always been the only man for Granny and she’d never married again, but that hadn’t meant she couldn’t enjoy what the good Lord put in front of her eyes. She was old, not blind, she used to say, and then she and Jo Spencer would cackle over their shared joke.

With the well of deep emotion fractured, grief rolled into anger and Angelica stiffened. The scene unfolding in front of her became increasingly obvious with every step Jo took. She was dragging Rowdy right to Angelica’s side.

Angelica didn’t dash away, even if every nerve in her body was urging her to do so. Question after question pressed her down.