At the first sight of him, her heart jolted to life and then dropped like a boulder to the pit of her stomach, where it rumbled around disturbingly.
The crowd roared as Rowdy stepped up onto the makeshift wooden platform, his mouth creased in a friendly grin. Much had changed over the years, but not Rowdy’s smile.
A shiver of awareness vibrated through Angelica at her first glimpse of the man she knew so well, and paradoxically, didn’t know at all.
Rowdy.
Angelica cringed as he stepped forward, still slightly favoring his left leg when he walked.
So his injury had never completely healed, then. The inside of her head reverberated, her guilt clanging like a gong, and a wave of nausea washed through her.
Rowdy’s injury?
That was all on her.
It was enough to shatter her heart all over again.
Yet another prayer left unanswered. She had so wanted Rowdy to be healed completely of his injuries. If it hadn’t been for her pressing him to participate in the saddle bronc event he hadn’t been prepared for, he wouldn’t be limping in the first place.
Other than the way he clearly put additional effort into moving his left leg over his right, time had been good to him. He was as handsome as ever, with thick wavy blond hair and warm blue eyes. Strong planes defined his masculine face, weathered from the sun and shaded with a couple days’ growth of beard, giving him a rugged air.
He’d filled out in the years since she’d last seen him. His shoulders were broader and his muscles more defined from ranch work.
Not surprisingly, Rowdy didn’t have to entertain the crowd by doing tricks or flexing his muscles to get their attention, as other men before him had done. He merely flashed them his signature toothy grin and gestured with his fingers for his rapt audience to increase their applause. The resulting hoots, catcalls and laughter made Rowdy’s grin widen epically, and he tipped his hat in appreciation.
She remembered Rowdy’s smile all too well, along with the whispered words of a happy future meant just for the two of them alone to share.
An ugly, dark feeling churned in her gut and she swallowed hard against the bile that burned in her throat.
She counted those days as nothing more than the naïveté of youth, when they still thought they had their whole lives before them and that they could weather any storm life threw at them as long as they were together.
When they’d believed they were invincible.
They hadn’t yet comprehended that life could change in a moment.
But they’d learned. Oh, how painfully they’d learned.
It had only taken one second for their whole world to come crashing down around them.
One second.
And some things a person never recovered from—physically, emotionally or spiritually.
“Hush down, now,” Jo called, rapping her gavel to regain control of the crowd. “Quiet!”
A group of laughing young women near the front of the crowd immediately started bidding on Rowdy, cheerfully one-upping each other before Jo could officially open the bidding.
“Wait, wait. No bids, please,” Jo said, holding her hands up to stop the ladies from continuing.
The noise of the crowd immediately dropped to a hushed whisper.
“We’ve got a special case here with Rowdy, today,” Jo continued. “I’m sorry to disappoint all you single ladies out there, but Rowdy has already been bought and paid for before this auction even began.”
People gasped in astonishment.
“That’s not fair,” came a youngish-sounding female voice from the crowd. “No one else got to do that with any of the other men.”
The crowd rumbled in agreement.
Angelica continued to keep her head low but her ears were perfectly attuned to Jo’s words. She had a lot of questions that she was certain were echoing through the crowd.
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