The Girl with the Golden Spurs by Ann Major

Author:Ann Major
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance
ISBN: 9781408906699
Publisher: Mills & Boon
Published: 2008-08-27T04:00:00+00:00

Twelve

Never before had Lizzy felt so helpless. Day after day as she sat in the ICU beside her father, who continued to stare up at the ceiling, she prayed for a miracle.

Please, God, make him well.

One afternoon when her brothers were in with Caesar, Lizzy opened her eyes in the waiting room after saying such a prayer, Cole was there beside her. As always, he wore crisply starched jeans and a long-sleeved white shirt with the top two buttons undone at his dark throat.

Her heart leapt. “I—I didn’t hear you come in.”

His quick, gentle smile unleashed a torrent of unwanted emotion, so she closed her eyes again, hoping he wouldn’t see.

“I’m leaving later today,” he drawled when she trusted herself to look at him again. “Now that Hawk and Walker are here, I’ll be taking Sy’rai, Kinky and Vanilla back to the ranch.”

“You’re leaving?” The thought brought utter desolation.

“There’s a board meeting in a few days,” he said. “I’ll be back to fly you to San Antonio, if you want to go to it.”

“Of course. Thanks.” She forced a smile. “I feel so helpless here. If only there was something I could do for him.”

He slid a thick black briefcase across the floor toward her. “Your daddy wanted you in charge if something happened to him.”

She ran her trembling fingers over her father’s initials that were engraved in gold into the dark leather.

“He had these documents inside this case when he had the stroke,” Cole said. “I had the minutes and reports from all the board meetings from the past six months copied for you, as well. I also included some stuff about plans for the ranch museum’s opening. If you get through even half the papers, at least you won’t go to the meeting blind.”

“Thank you.”

He shrugged. “It’ll give you something to think about when you have time on your hands here at the hospital and are afraid you can’t do anything for him.”

She nodded.

“Sam told you that the ranch is searching for a new identity for itself,” he continued as he arose to go. “We’re redefining what we think the ranch and family should stand for.” He moved toward the doorway. “I think if you read this stuff—”

She barely heard what he said. All she could think of was that he was leaving, and she felt too overwhelmed by her father’s illness to face anything else. “I’ve never been to San Antonio without my father…alone.”

“You’ll be with me.”

“You’re the last person I should want there.”

“Just read one document at a time, and you won’t be so overwhelmed,” he said gently before he left her.

It scared her a little that he understood what she was feeling so well.

A norther gusted into Houston that night, snuffing out the last of the Indian summer. The skies above the glass skyscrapers and tall pine trees became gray and dark. In the late afternoon when she left the hospital, the weather was humid and drizzly. As if her father’s condition, her mother’s remote

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