Val looked from one determined expression to the other. The thought of doing what her friends demanded scared the shit out of her, but they were right. She was stuck in a prison of her own making. And now she’d dragged them into it. “Okay.” She swallowed. “I’ll do it.”
* * *
Nine in the morning, and already the sun felt like a branding iron on Adam Templeton’s shoulders as he walked toward the barn. On most days, heading down to see his horses calmed him, but not this morning. What the hell had he gotten himself into?
Will thought it was hysterically funny that Adam was nervous about working with Valerie Wolitzky, especially since Adam had been the one to prompt Will into providing his card outside the Golden Spurs and Stetsons. You’ve dealt with battle-scarred soldiers who are a thousand times more traumatized than she is, Will had said. She’ll be a piece of cake compared to them.
Oh, yeah, she’d be a piece of cake, all right. Sweet and tempting. Of course, she could be married or seeing someone. That would help. His divorce from Elise was only fifteen months old, and Adam felt battle-scarred himself.
He’d mentioned to Will that all the folks he’d worked with thus far had been men. Will had told him that wouldn’t always be the case. Female soldiers came home with PTSD, too. If Adam was serious about this new direction in his life, he’d need to help women as well as men.
Well, yeah, point taken. And Adam was serious about this venture. He hadn’t resigned his position as CEO of the family corporation and turned it over to his younger brother so that he could play cowboy, as Elise had termed it.
He’d never enjoyed the corporate world, but his little brother loved it. Nate was thrilled that Adam had bucked tradition and given him control of the family’s holdings. For years, Adam had unquestioningly followed the path laid out by his father and grandfather, a path Elise and her parents had approved of. None of those people could dictate to him now.
His grandfather and father had both died in their fifties of heart attacks, and Elise had married another billionaire, so even the alimony payments weren’t an issue anymore. He’d taken inventory of his situation and decided he had enough money to last several lifetimes. He had the luxury of doing what he loved and making his brother Nate happy at the same time.
After consulting with Will, a close friend since high school, Adam had returned to his first passion—horses and ranching. He’d bought the Triple Bar and enough registered quarter horses to start a breeding operation. But the breeding was more of a hobby, rather than Adam’s primary purpose in buying the ranch.
Equine therapy was catching on in the mental health community, and Will was a strong proponent of using animals to connect with tortured individuals. Adam loved the idea that this ranch, which he’d bought to satisfy his own yearnings, also could be a healing place for those who’d been battered by war and other calamities.
He was only about six months into it, but so far, the process had been rewarding. Apparently teaching people how to care for and interact with horses was a good companion activity to Will’s therapy sessions. Adam had watched several vets regain some peace of mind through interacting with his animals.
Intellectually he’d known his charges wouldn’t always be men, although up to now they had been. But why did the first woman have to be a scrappy female defiantly hiding her vulnerability? She’d obviously prefer to go down in flames rather than admit she needed help. Her friends must have done some serious arm-twisting to get her into Will’s office.
That type of personality never failed to trip the switch on Adam’s protective instincts. On top of that, she was a long-legged redhead with porcelain skin and green eyes, a knockout who would interest any man with a pulse. He hadn’t explained any of that to Will, but they’d been friends for a long time. He wouldn’t put it past Will to have sent her out here on purpose.
It would be just like him, and he had a legitimate right to interfere in Adam’s social life. Will had suffered through countless rants during Adam’s messy divorce from Elise. Will, a lucky cuss who’d found the right woman right off the bat, had strongly suggested that Adam should get back in the game and stop hiding. He thought Adam still had his own demons to slay, and he was probably right.
But Adam didn’t feel ready to engage in that battle just yet. So what if he was attracted to the lovely Miss Wolitzky? He’d control himself. He was here to help her bond with horses and resolve her fears, whatever they might be. Because of patient confidentiality, Will never discussed specifics with Adam.
Valerie had instructions to meet him at the barn. Will had told her that Adam was the same guy she’d run into when she’d dashed out of the bar in such a panic. According to Will, she hadn’t been particularly happy about that, because the incident had embarrassed her no end.
That hardly surprised him. So maybe they were even. He was worried about having her come to his ranch, and she didn’t want to be there. But she had a problem, and Will believed the horses could help her solve it.
The barn wasn’t air conditioned, at least not yet. Adam could easily afford to do it, but an air conditioned barn, one with doors and windows permanently closed all summer, wasn’t part of his ranching fantasy, so he’d held off. Heating the place in the winter didn’t bother him, but he’d balked at air conditioning.
Instead he’d installed fans in the rafters, and they worked reasonably well. The hands had been through the barn already this morning, mucking stalls and spreading clean straw. Adam took a deep breath, enjoying the blended aromas of fresh straw and aged wood.
It was an older structure, but huge. He planned to preserve the ambiance and add a few things, like open-air enclosures outside most of the stalls, especially the large ones where he’d house his brood mares. He’d wanted this ranch life since he’d been five, and now he had it.
All the horses had been turned out into the pasture except Rocket Fuel, the gelding Adam had designated as the horse Valerie would work with, and a mare and her new foal. The bay mare, Saucy Lady, promised to be a valuable brood mare. Her mostly black colt, Naughty Boy, had been sold before his birth to a Dallas-area stable.
Adam was on his way down the concrete aisle between the stalls to check on Saucy Lady and Naughty Boy when he heard a car pull up outside. He glanced at the barn clock. Nine fifteen. If that was Valerie, she was right on time.
Retracing his steps, he grabbed a clipboard off the wall. She’d have to sign a waiver before he let her near any of his horses. His lawyers had also insisted that he post an indemnification sign in a prominent spot now that he was helping Will’s clients. A billionaire was a juicy target for lawsuits.
As he approached the open barn door, he mentally prepared himself to be friendly yet businesslike. Damn it, he’d never had this kind of anxiety when welcoming Will’s other patients. But no matter how he’d tried to reframe this meeting, it felt exactly like a date, and he was sadly out of practice for those.
He walked into the sunshine and found her standing beside her jaunty little black sports car. She looked anything but jaunty, though. She stood ramrod-straight, arms at her sides, her expression an unyielding mask, her eyes hidden behind large sunglasses.
Her jeans looked new, and so did her brown boots. She wore a plain white T-shirt tucked in, which emphasized her narrow h*ps and long legs. The pristine straw cowboy hat dangling from her slender fingers had obviously never seen service.
She could have been a mannequin in a store window except for her hair. Boyishly short and tousled, it blazed in shades of deep orange and seemed to radiate energy. He couldn’t stop looking at that hair, which provided the only evidence of her inner fire, a fire he knew existed. He’d been on the receiving end when she’d erupted.
He dragged in a breath. Keeping his distance from Valerie Wolitzky was going to be a challenge.
Two
He was at least as tall as Valerie remembered, maybe an inch or two taller. Not many men made her feel petite, but this one did. Adam Templeton, quarter-horse breeder, former corporate raider, rich dude. Will hadn’t told her any of that, but once she’d learned the name of the cowboy who would be helping her become better acquainted with horses, she’d Googled him. What she hadn’t discovered on the Internet, she’d learned from her friends.
Between Astrid, who had many connections among Dallas’s wealthiest citizens, and Melanie, who was engaged to Dallas billionaire Drew Eldridge, Val had found out about Adam’s divorce and his recent decision to leave the corporate world. Now he raised horses and helped Will rehabilitate returning vets.
But in his shift to a rural lifestyle, he’d spared no expense. Driving in on a freshly-paved road, she’d glimpsed an elegant two-story house on a rise overlooking a ranching operation that had to be worth millions. Sleek horses with glossy coats grazed in pastures bordered with sparkling white fences. All the numerous outbuildings had fresh coats of tan paint.
She’d noticed two cowboys on horseback crossing one of the pastures. Another was inside one of the corrals exercising a horse with the use of a long line that allowed the horse to trot in a circle, and yet another cowhand was raking an empty corral near the barn. She hadn’t seen a single weed growing anywhere.