Trapped with the Texan by Joanne Rock

Author:Joanne Rock
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2021-05-10T18:39:28+00:00

Eight

Safety goggles sealed to her face, Valencia lined up the laser guide on her table saw, then lowered the blade. Sawdust flew as the metal teeth seared through another board to repair her paddock fence, the scent of new lumber swelling in the muggy July heat. She’d kept the big barn doors open to begin her project that morning, wanting the fresh air to keep the dust at a minimum, but now that the sun had risen to its peak, she was ready to call it a day.

Her shoulders ached from hunching over the boards while she worked, and she stretched as she straightened. A full day had passed since she’d visited the Appaloosa Island and things had unraveled fast with Lorenzo. She’d tried to focus on tornado cleanup around her property so as not to spend too much time thinking about their falling-out and what it might mean for the rescue. Backbreaking labor was good for wearing her out so thoroughly she couldn’t be too stressed.

Except today, as she added the last cut plank to a pile in her truck bed for a round of fence repairs later, she couldn’t hide her head in the sand anymore. She needed to call Asher Edmond and see what was happening with the festival. To find out if her chance of receiving any money from the Soiree on the Bay ticket sales was gone, or if there was still some hope that the event would come together.

For all Valencia knew, her disagreement with Lorenzo—and sleeping with him before that—had pulled her rescue off the list of the Cortez-Williams family’s approved charities. Which could mean her horses might not receive a single cent in donation from either of the groups that had once seemed so promising.

That would be painful enough in itself. But Valencia couldn’t deny another persistent ache since her argument with Lorenzo. She missed him. She’d thought about him countless times since her return home from Appaloosa Island without him. Now that he’d spent time in her world—meeting all her horses, helping her to care for them before and after the tornado—she had memories of him here. She could look out over her paddock and picture him coaxing in her most stubborn and moody old mare when the storm had been brewing. Inside the stable, she remembered how he’d laughed when one of the docile draft horses had nuzzled his shirt pocket, hoping for a treat.

And in her bedroom alone the night before, she’d remembered how it felt to have Lorenzo there with her, too. He’d worked his way into her life so quickly she hadn’t had time to consider how much it might hurt if things didn’t work out between them. But there was no “them” and it was foolish of her to think otherwise.

Peeling off her leather work gloves in exasperation, Valencia rested a hip on the tailgate, then pulled her phone from the back pocket of her jeans.

The sound of cicadas filled the air, an audible reminder of the summer heat even as she stood under the shade of a bald cypress tree.

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