Betting on Hope (13 page)

Maggie’s expression puzzled Tru.

If he’d expected her to look at him after that statement and suddenly change her position on trusting him, he was wrong. Instead she said nothing, turning her attention back to Stardust.

She didn’t trust him. News flash: he didn’t trust her either, but it bugged him that she hadn’t even hesitated when she’d answered his question.

What in her past had put this chip on her shoulder against men? Because she had said she didn’t trust men. He guessed he should be relieved that it wasn’t just him, but he wasn’t. Right here, right now—this was only about him and about her.

“You could ease up a little, you know,” he grunted, irritation pricking at him like a woodpecker. To be honest, he wasn’t in the easiest of moods today, and this hadn’t helped. Since learning that he’d soon be going through with the test that would tell him if he had the ability to be a father, a biological dad, he was as tense as freshly stretched barbed wire.

He nabbed another brush from the bucket next to the stall entrance and moved to the other side of Stardust, needing the movement to calm himself. “We’ve both agreed to this. You don’t trust me or men at all, from what I can see. And I have to admit my curiosity about all of that. But the only thing I can see that I did wrong was to help you through a rough spot in that interview. I messed it up; I get that. What I don’t get is your attitude.”

She stared at him across the gelding’s back. Those pretty eyes had flared momentarily, telling him she hadn’t expected him to confront her. Just like he hadn’t expected the two-ton cement chip perched on her delicate shoulder.

He started brushing Stardust, focusing on each stroke and felt her gaze on him.

“You have a lot of room to talk.
You
think
I
set you up.”

He met her accusing gaze. “Did you?”

She cocked her head, her expression suspiciously demure. “Why, Tru, don’t you
trust
me?”

After the first awkward lesson finally ended, Maggie headed to town intent on meeting some of the locals. If she were to write some of the weekly articles about the town then she needed to meet the locals. Those were going to be her focus rather than her training, if at all possible. She hated the idea of writing things about Tru—she wasn’t a tabloid writer and she really didn’t want to resort to anything that resembled it. If she could find something, anything that would grab attention and be of interest other than Tru Monahan that was what she planned to do.

Writing her “Gotta Have Hope” column would be the same as always, and meant reading emails and answering four of them in the column each week. But she tried to answer as many as she could, and it was exhausting sometimes, because she actually received a lot of mail. So she knew that with the added assignments, she had her work cut out for her if she were to get it all done successfully. And she had to be successful.

She just had to be.

There were so many women out there who had gotten raw deals looking for love. Men too. Love was complicated. Life was, too, and she was proof of that. But despite her own mixed-up past, she’d found that she was good at giving advice or at least helping her audience feel uplifted.

But there was a strong sense of joy that filled her when she was able to help someone look past the pain of a breakup and move forward. To realize they deserved more than they were giving themselves credit for. There was nothing like the feeling she got when someone she’d helped wrote her and told her something she’d said helped them.

She’d grown comfortable with her column. But this new assignment put her in unfamiliar territory.

She had to get to know this town, had to meet the people, and figure out a way to use it to save her column.

As she got out of her car, two ladies moved from the sidewalk across the street, excitement radiating from them as they hustled her way. It was the two eavesdroppers from the interview.

“Maggie,” the shorter of the two called, several strands of very chunky, very gaudy jewelry bouncing and jangling as she jostled to a halt. “We wanted to welcome you to Wishing Springs.”

“We’ve been so excited ever since we heard you were coming,” the taller woman said, her smile wide as she pushed her blunt, chin-length brown hair behind her ear.

“Hi,” Maggie said. This was perfect. “I remember y’all. You were in the kitchen at the Bull Barn during the interview.” She remembered them all right—their voices could even be heard on the tape, breathless and animated. She was certain that they’d helped add some excitement to the interview and the powers that be felt it and realized others would feel it too.

One thing had been certain, they’d believed in Tru.

Now they beamed.

“I’m Clara Lyn Conway,” the short one said and waved a bejeweled hand toward her friend. “This is my sidekick Reba Moorsby. We co-own the Cut Up and Roll salon. If it’s to be known, we know it,” she stated with pride.

“We are certain that you’ll be a really good rider by the time our Tru gets done with you,” Reba assured her. “We’re on our way to the Bull Barn for our weekly lunch meeting. Come along. Everyone is dying to meet you.”

Maggie’s adrenaline started humming and she agreed to the lunch invitation without hesitating. “I came to meet people, so this is perfect.”

Reba and Clara Lyn grinned at each other.

“Then lunch at the Bull Barn is where you need to be,” Reba said. “How’s the hand, by the way?”

Clara Lyn took Maggie’s arm and inspected the bandage. “Doonie and Doobie told us they saw you at Doc’s after you were bitten by Pops’s dog.”

Maggie had heard things traveled fast in small towns. “It’s fine.” She gave an unenthusiastic grin. “He didn’t mean anything by it. I shouldn’t have crawled under the bed with him.”

“You crawled under the bed with him?” Clara Lyn gasped.

“He was stuck.”

“The dog was stuck?” Reba asked.

“Yes.” She started to clarify why she’d crawled under there and then remembered how Tru didn’t want her putting anything in the papers about Pops and his Alzheimer’s. She wasn’t sure how he felt about the town’s people knowing about Pops’s problems. “Yes, when I arrived he was under there, and he was wailing, so I was just going to try and help him out. I should have waited on Tru to arrive.”

“They said you got stuck.”

She looked at Reba. “Well,” she swallowed, they were all going to think she was some brainless woman, “I jumped when the dog bit me, and I wedged myself there sideways by accident.” There, that should explain it. And she’d said nothing about Pops.

Fifteen minutes later Maggie saw that Reba had been right about lunch at the Bull Barn being the place to be to meet folks. The parking lot was packed. She found an empty spot and then followed the two ladies inside.

Unlike the emptiness on the day of the interview, today there were people popping out of every nook and cranny. All talking ceased momentarily as Big Shorty came up to greet them, then led them toward a table.

Conversation resumed, and folks began stopping them as they passed by. The women asked about the interview. The men—cowboys—didn’t say anything. From a table in the corner, either Doonie or Doobie waved. The twin was sitting at the head of a table with several older men and a couple of ladies.

“How’s the hand?” he called. “You haven’t tried to be puppy food anymore, have you?”

It felt awkward to hold a conversation with the entire diner. “No,” she answered.

“Did you start your lessons yet?” someone else asked.

“Isn’t that Tru a hunk?” a petite lady said heartily. She was sitting at the end of the table with the Burke twin.

Maggie really didn’t know how to answer that. Yes, Tru Monahan
was
a hunk. A hunky ladies’ man, making him absolutely, decidedly
not
her type with his womanizing exploits. Then there was the issue of discussing it in the middle of the diner with a pint-size woman well into her seventies, not to mention everyone else in the room listening and grinning at her as they waited on her answer. It was a little overwhelming.

In the end, Big Shorty saved her. “All right everyone, the interrogation is over for the moment. Let Miss Hope get to her table and enjoy her lunch.”

Maggie could have kissed the man as he escorted them to a table and handed out menus. The man took care of his clients.

Melting gratefully into her chair, she took the menu and pretended to study it as Big Shorty headed off to get the tea and waters that they all ordered.

The place was buzzing about the column, the TV special, and the riding challenge. Much speculation abounded. Though they were honoring the owner’s decree to let her get her meal underway, she soon found herself involved in what was more like a huge family gathering.

The general consensus: the town was genuinely excited about the publicity that she’d generated for their friendly town.

During the conversation, her attention was grabbed by the man she’d seen at the grocery the night before. Today, though his hat sat a little crookedly on his head, he didn’t appear to be in the least bit tipsy. Or to recognize her.

“Did you say that was Wishing Springs’s city council sitting with Doonie?”

Clara Lyn nodded. “Each and every one.”

Maggie couldn’t believe her eyes. The man in the jaunty hat, the drunk from the grocery store, was Mr. Radcliff—town
councilman
?

The plot thickened; Maggie was shocked. It wasn’t as if people in positions like that didn’t get drunk. But still, she was shocked.

He wore a neatly pressed oxford shirt and his hair was combed impeccably, every thick silver strand in place. Yesterday he’d been wearing a rumpled cotton shirt and khaki pants, and when his hat fell off, his hair had been mushed and hanging in his eyes.

Clara Lyn caught her staring at the man. She leaned in close. “That is Rand Radcliff,” she whispered. “He’s the editor of the
Wishing Springs Gazette
. I’m sure he’s going to be wanting an interview from you for the paper. He’s a bit of a scoundrel. You know, he tends to tip the bottle a little.”

Reba clucked her tongue twice. “When he’s not loaded, he’s a dear and a good reporter and editor. But . . .”

“It’s sad,” Clara Lyn picked up where Reba trailed off. “Real sad.” Then with a shake of her head, Clara Lyn turned to Maggie. “So, we read your column. You give things such a hopeful twist. You know, in the beauty shop, I often give advice. People just come in and tell me their life stories. It’s not like I even ask. They just do. And Reba can tell you that I do give good advice.” She dipped her chin. “I take it
very
seriously.”

Reba nodded. “Too seriously, sometimes. She went on a stakeout for a customer once.”

“I don’t do stakeouts anymore.”

Reba glared at her. “That’s a good thing.”

Clara Lyn blushed. “There are just some things your beauty operator does not need to know.”

Reba hiked a brow. “I tried to warn you.”

“I know. But my clients are important to me and sometimes I just get carried away.”

Maggie was smiling. She couldn’t help it. These two were alive with energy and it was very easy to see that they cared. “I take my job seriously too,” she confessed. “All these people write to me, and I have this fear that I’m going to say something wrong. So I try mostly to find ways to help them see hope in their situation. It’s not like I can actually change their problems. But, God has always been there for me, and I know that in my darkest hours, I had hope. He gave me strength.” She paused, letting her purpose fill her up like gas to an empty tank. “There are really good people out there, so I try to shine a light their direction too.”

“You do, dear. You do,” Reba cooed. “I read that column you wrote two weeks ago about that woman who is the child advocate. She was amazing.”

“And she gives hope to those kids out there who need a champion,” Maggie pointed out. She could have used someone like Silvia Tatum when she’d been a kid.

“So this other column about the bet, what’s it going to be about?” Reba asked.

“I’m trying to figure that out as I go. But I just thought I’d write about the town, and things that are going on here, and of course I have to write something about the bet, you know, Tru and me.”

Clara Lyn and Reba looked at each other thoughtfully and then grinned.

“That sounds perfect,” Clara Lyn said. “We might be a hole-in-the-road town, according to some, but we are interesting. And I suspect strongly that Tru will give you a
host
of interesting things to write.”

Both women beamed at her in a way that put Maggie on alert. “Hold on,” she cautioned. “Contrary to what everyone is likely thinking, I am not here for Tru in that manner. And he is not looking at me in
that
manner. So I’m exploring other aspects of the story. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.”

“Well, that is a cry’n shame,” Reba huffed. “And I can hold out for ‘Tru’ love to blossom—get my pun?” She smiled with coyness in her expression.

“Me too,” Clara Lyn agreed. “But in the meantime, we are having the Thanksgiving in July celebration in three weeks. You could write about that. Might get us a lot of tourists coming in and a lot of business for a good cause.”