Billionaire Husband Test (Billionaire Online Dating Service) (10 page)

“Why is this happening?” Emma stroked the dog’s head. “I loved Marcus. There’s no other man I want in my life.”

Nelson whined and nudged her hand when it stopped the stroking motion.

Emma lifted Marcus’s dog tags from the bottom of the box and held the chain in her fingers. Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes.

“Why did you leave me?” More tears followed the first. Emma stared at the picture on her nightstand of Marcus and her. When she closed her eyes, the image faded, replaced by Cooper standing in the moonlight after a kiss that should never have happened.

Emma clutched Marcus’s dog tags to her chest and curled up beside the golden retriever on the braided rug. “Why did you leave me?” she whispered.

As exhaustion claimed Emma, Marcus’s voice seemed to whisper through the open window, “I never did and never will.”

* * * * *

Cooper drove home that night, his thoughts in more of a turmoil than when he’d set out earlier that evening. When he walked through the door of his ranch house, the phone rang.

He ignored the first ring. Then he thought, what if the caller was Emma? He snatched the device from the cradle and slammed it against his ear. “Hello.”

“Coop, the suspense is killing me. What have you found out?”

“Tag?” Cooper glanced at his watch. “Do you know how late it is?”

“Past midnight. I couldn’t sleep.”

“What if
I’d
been asleep?”

“With a woman on your mind?” His friend snorted. “Right. Stop stalling. What did you find out?”

Cooper jerked his hat off his head and tossed it on the table beside the phone base. “Her brother Ace managed to get her to go out tonight to the Ugly Stick Saloon outside Temptation. I just happened to be there.”

Tag whooped. “Way to go. The more she sees you, the more she’s likely to fall for you, man.”

“I’m not so sure.” Remembering the stricken look on her face, Cooper raked his fingers through his hair. “She’s really hung up on her late fiancé.”

“He’s out of the picture.”

“Yeah, but if she does go for me, will I be her rebound?”

Tag sighed. “Hmmm. You have a point. What you have to decide is if she’s worth the risk.”

Exactly what Cooper had been thinking. Visions of Emma staring up at him in the moonlight and the tingle of warmth still emanating through him from her body pressed close as they’d danced and then kissed… “Man, I think she’s the one for me. The question is if I’m the one for her. I don’t think she’s ready to move forward.”

“Have you kissed her?”

Cooper hesitated, his own cowboy code kicking in. A man didn’t kiss and tell.

“You did,” Tag responded for him. “And?”

His lips tingled. He could still taste Emma. “None of your business.”

“Must have been good if you’re not sharing.” Tag chuckled. “I’m guessing she kissed you back. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have your chaps in a twist.”

Cooper shook his head, a smile tugging at his lips. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re annoying?”

“All the time. Part of my charm.”

“So you called to torment me?”

“Just following up to see if you made any progress today. Did you learn anything more about her likes and dislikes?”

“Ace gave me a few pointers.”

“Good. Tomorrow, you have to put them all to work. Oh, and since you didn’t want to hire a private investigator to look into your Emma’s background, I did.”

Cooper was already shaking his head. “I didn’t hear that. I wouldn’t violate her privacy any more than I have by asking her brothers about her. I felt bad enough as it was.”

“Hmm, then I guess you don’t want to know she’s planning to buy a spread of her own.”

That got his attention. As a man who’d only recently purchased his own three-thousand acre ranch to plant some roots, Cooper was keenly interested in land deals and sales. But then, this was Emma. “She lives on her family’s ranch. Why would she want to buy her own?”

“Got your interest, did it?”

Cooper shook his head. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”

“If you do. I can tell you where it is and how much the owner is asking.”

“If Emma and I make it as a couple, I want it to be based on truth and honesty. I want her to be with me because she loves me. Not because I can buy her anything her heart desires.”

“What good is money if you can’t spoil the people you care about?”

Cooper could only shake his head at Tag’s attitude. “Not everyone wants to be spoiled.”

“My point exactly. Apparently, your Emma has been saving her money to buy this piece, refusing to let her brothers buy it for her.”

Emma rose another notch in Cooper’s estimation. The woman had enough spunk and gumption for two. “Please don’t investigate further.”

“Doesn’t hurt to know as much as possible about the woman. Gets you past the awkward silences of getting to know each other. Speaking of which…good luck tomorrow on your first real date together.”

If Emma didn’t cancel on him between now and the following evening. “I gotta get some rest.”

“Yeah, you want to be in top form when you sweep the future Mrs. Johnson off her feet.”

“Hey. I’m taking her out, not asking her to marry me. I’ve only known Emma for a day and a half.”

“You’ve heard of love at first sight, haven’t you?”

“I don’t buy into all that crap.”

“Time will tell.”

“Goodnight, Tag.”

“‘Night.”

Cooper hung up, more disturbed than when he’d walked through his front door.

Love at first sight?

Nah.

That experience couldn’t happen to a man who grew up in the foster system. He didn’t believe in love at first sight or happily-ever-afters. The concepts didn’t exist.

Or did they?

He strode through house, viewing it with a fresh eye. The single-story home had been tastefully decorated in Southwest ranch style with floor-to-ceiling windows in most rooms and raised ceilings. Completely furnished, the place was his retreat from the hustle of Dallas and the constant motion and churning of traffic and humans.

At the ranch, he had everything he needed to be self-sufficient. He’d worked hard over the past ten years to accumulate enough wealth to never again be dependent on anyone. The foster homes had taught him that much.

Still, the house felt empty…incomplete.

Cooper kicked off his boots and stripped out of his jeans and shirt. Emma’s scent clung to his skin as he lay across the king-size bed in the master bedroom. The hum of cicadas drifted in through his open window, making the room feel bigger, like he was sleeping in the vastness of the outdoors.

Alone.

He wanted to rail against Leslie and her damned match-making program. Before he’d met Emma, he’d thought he had everything.

Emma and the Jacobs’ brothers brought the fact home that he didn’t.

Hell, he didn’t have anything that counted.

To the Jacobs, things could be replaced, family was forever.

Not for the first time in his life, Cooper wished for a family.

Chapter Eight

Dawn had yet to come when Emma woke to Nelson’s tongue scraping across her cheek. She turned away her face, a crick in her neck causing her to flinch. “Get off the bed,” she muttered.

Nelson licked her again and jumped to his feet, toenails clicking across wooden floors.

Emma opened her eyes, the gray haze of pre-dawn illuminating the fact she’d slept on the floor. Photos and memorabilia scattered as she sat up. The dog tags she’d gone to sleep clutching jangled against her fingers.

She pressed a kiss to the cold hard metal and pushed to a standing position. With a sigh, she carefully placed all the items back in the box and closed the lid, feeling for the first time like she was closing the box containing her old life. Frowning, she lifted the cardboard container and hiked it up onto the shelf in her closet, next to her high school scrapbook and an old doll her mother had given her when she was six.

What made her move the box from beneath her bed to her closet, Emma didn’t know. She just felt the time was right, and that thought made her sad. After closing the closet door, she entered the bathroom, brushed her teeth, pulled her hair back in a low ponytail and slipped out of the clothes she’d been wearing the night before, when Cooper had kissed her.

Another glance in the mirror proved she was still Emma. The same woman who’d gone to the bar last night had come back unchanged in physical appearance. But inside a nervous, restless twitchiness forced her out of the bathroom and back into her bedroom where she flung on clean jeans, boots and an old T-shirt.

Before the sun came up, Emma was in the barn, mucking stalls and feeding horses. As the golden orb peeked over the horizon, she sat astride her palomino mare, riding across the pasture, away from the house and the prying eyes and minds of her well-meaning brothers. She had a lot to do today. A gate needed mending, a fence on the north forty needed to be restretched and the pasture near the creek needed mowing. But for now, she rode hard, letting Daisy have her head, the cool morning air giving them both the lift and vibrancy they needed to face the day.

When she returned to the house, she ducked into the kitchen. Her brothers had yet to make an appearance. Probably stayed out too late at the Ugly Stick. Maybe nursing hangovers. Just as well.

Emma couldn’t face the inquisition. Not yet. Not after the kiss that had rocked her world and awakened desires she thought had died with Marcus.

Working quietly, she slapped together a quick sandwich out of leftover ham, grabbed her hat and slipped back outside.

A working ranch with over two thousand head of cattle and a herd of thirty horses, the Rockin’ J Ranch bred Angus cattle and trained both thoroughbred and quarter horses. With several hired hands. Emma didn’t have to lift a finger and the work got done. That wasn’t her style. Emma pitched in on the evenings and weekends when she wasn’t working at the T-Bar-M Ranch.

She’d never let her family’s money influence her behavior, preferring the hard work of a rancher, over that of a pampered princess. With money, employees and animals, came responsibility. Emma dreamed of the day when she could afford a house of her own, built with the money she’d earned. Oh sure, she could have taken money from the family coffers, and built a home worthy of the Southern Living magazine by now, but doing so wouldn’t have felt like she’d earned it. Now she had almost enough to buy the little one-hundred and fifty-acre farm down by Willow Creek. Old Man Rausch said he’d let her know if someone showed interest in the property before he sold it, to give her a chance to make an offer first.

She planned to meet with him by the end of the week and start the paperwork. Soon, she’d be the owner of her own place, free and clear of her brothers and her family’s wealth. Only then would she feel like she could make her own way.

Marcus had been less than enthusiastic about the Willow Creek place. He’d argued that when they married, she’d follow him around from post to post, finding work wherever she could.

Young and in love, Emma would have done anything to please Marcus and she would have been happy doing it, as long as she was with him. Now that she was so close to owning her own place, she looked forward to rolling up her sleeves and making it her own.

Too bad, she wouldn’t have anyone to share it with.

As soon as that thought surfaced, another followed with an image of Cooper tossing hay bales onto the back of a trailer, shirtless and coated in a shiny layer of sweat.

The heat of the sun had nothing to do with the flames bursting inside Emma. She grabbed the post-hole diggers and tossed them into the back of the work truck, then loaded several wood posts and a come-along and wire cutters. She was headed for the stack of T-posts when Jared Kramer, the youngest of the ranch hands, trotted up alongside her.

“Let me get those, Miss Emma.”

“I can do it,” she said, reaching for three posts.

“I know you can, but I feel better if I do it for you.” Jared smiled. “My mamma taught me to be a gentleman.”

Emma grinned. “She did a good job.”

The eighteen-year-old grabbed a bundle of ten, flung it up on his shoulder like the load was nothing and carried it to the back of the waiting truck. He returned to the barn for a roll of field fence, then again for a roll of barbed wire, while Emma searched for twist ties, fence staples and a hammer.

Jared grabbed the chainsaw, a jug of gas and a file and tossed them in with the fencing supplies. “That ought to do it. Reckon you’ll need a hand with that fence.” The teen hooked his thumbs in his belt loops and rocked back on his dusty dingo boots. “Are you driving or am I?”

Emma frowned. She’d wanted to mend the fence to have time by herself to think through what was happening in her life and what she wanted to do about it. But the job wasn’t a one-man or one-woman job. “I’ll drive.”

Jared climbed into the passenger seat and sat in silence throughout the fifteen-minute drive to the far corner of the property. Without being told, he climbed down from the truck and opened gates, closing them behind the truck when she’d gone through.

They spent the day, cutting the downed tree, removing the old fence and snapped posts and digging holes and setting the new poles. Once all the posts were in place, Emma hooked the come-along to the fence puller. While Jared held the field fence off the ground, she cranked the wench until the wire stretched taut.

Jared grabbed the hammer and a pocket full of fence staples and tacked the fence to a wooden pole.

Emma twist-tied the wire to the steel posts in between the wooden posts. When the fence was secure, she let off the tension on the come-along and the fence stood straight and tight, with shiny new wire.

The sun dipped toward the horizon as Jared and Emma loaded the truck with the old fence and the supplies and headed back to the barn.

A four-wheeler met them halfway back. Brand pulled up beside the truck, a frown marring his brow. “Do you realize how late it is?”

“No.” Emma frowned. “The clock on the truck doesn’t work.”

“You have exactly twenty minutes to get ready for your date.”