As she thought about that, the Irish temper she’d inherited along with her red hair flared and began a slow burn. People had been taking advantage of her good nature. By allowing them to take advantage, she was imposing restrictions on the sweet animals she’d already accepted. She didn’t have an animal problem. She had a people problem. She couldn’t control how others behaved, but she could control her reaction to their behavior.

  Returning to her office, she snatched up the list she’d printed and marched back through the living room and out the front door. The man was dressed like an average cowboy, but Lily had a high opinion of that label and she refused to assign it to this guy. He wanted to dump a horse without asking first. He was no cowboy.

  She walked over to the gate. “Can I help you?”

  “Yeah, I was told I could leave this horse with you. I wasn’t sure how to get in. Good thing you came out.”

  “Who told you that you could leave a horse here?”

  He waved a hand. “I dunno. Some guy I met in a coffee shop in Jackson. So, can you open the gate? I don’t have a lot of time.”

  “Sorry, but I’m not opening the gate.” She could hardly believe those words had come out of her mouth, but she was in a mood.

  “How am I gonna get this horse inside?”

  “You’re not. I’m at capacity and can’t accept any more horses.”

  “He’s a good horse.”

  She steeled herself against thinking about the animal in the trailer. “I’m sure he is. But because I’m full, I can’t take him.” She rolled the list up and handed it over the gate. “You’ll find several other options there.”

  He made an impatient noise low in his throat. “I don’t want to go chasing all over the countryside.”

  She spared one moment of anguish for the horse stuck with such a subpar human being. But as Regan had suggested, she thought of the animals she already had in her care. They didn’t deserve to be crowded because some idiot like this man showed up with another horse.

  “So you really won’t take him?” The guy seemed very disgusted.

  “No.” She stood there a moment and savored the sound of that word. “No, I won’t.” Then she turned and started back to the house.

  But instead of going there, she found herself walking around the building and out to the new paddock. She counted, and all seventeen were there, including Taffy. Regan must have herded them in after he’d fed them breakfast.

  She’d watched him do it several times before. Grabbing a fistful of mane, he’d vault onto whichever horse was handy. Then he’d ride bareback and use a coiled rope to direct the herd into the enclosure. He’d been poetry in motion. Suddenly she missed him with a deep, visceral ache. She wanted him to come home. She wanted to tell him that against all odds, she’d learned how to say no.

  17

  REGAN PARKED IN FRONT of the little log cabin. He’d had to take a dirt road to get there, but the place sat all by itself in a clearing, so it had been simple to locate. Across the road ran a fence that marked the edge of Last Chance property. This rental was as close to the ranch as anyone could get without actually setting foot on it.

  At least Drake had been smart enough to know he wouldn’t be welcome at the Last Chance. Sarah welcomed nearly everyone who came to her door, but once Drake had introduced himself, he would have been sent on his way with a regal lift of Sarah’s chin. Regan almost wished he had tried it, just so he could have experienced the Sarah Chance freeze-out.

  Regan hadn’t called ahead, either. Surprising Drake had a certain poetic justice to it after the way he’d startled the guy six months ago on Christmas Eve. Belatedly Regan wondered if Drake would have a woman with him. It was Sunday morning, and Drake could easily have gone into town last night in search of female companionship. What Drake sought, he usually found.

  To hell with it. If he’d brought a woman home, so what? She might want to know what kind of man she was dealing with, so Regan would be doing her a favor by barging in on their cozy setup. He banged on the front door.

  A moment later it opened to reveal a man Regan barely recognized. Drake had always leaned toward the preppie look—clean-shaven, neat salon haircut, crisp white shirts and tailored slacks. This Drake had several days’ growth of beard and was in desperate need of a good haircut. He wore a faded UV sweatshirt and jeans that had seen better days.

  Drake blinked. Then his signature feature, green eyes that were once filled with mischief and laughter, widened. “You came.” Gone was the cocky attitude. Well, mostly. He looked almost, but not quite, humble. “Thank you. Come in.”

  “Don’t thank me yet, Brewster.” Regan walked past him into the open floor plan that combined a kitchen with a living room. The kitchen looked relatively neat, but the living room was strewn with books and magazines. A half-full mug of coffee sat on an end table.

  Checking over the reading material, Regan noticed quite a bit of motivational stuff, the kind of thing his parents loved. He even spotted Happiness Is a Choice by Bethany Grace. He’d met Bethany on several occasions. She and her husband, Nash Bledsoe, lived on a small ranch down the road from the Last Chance.

  Regan would share none of that with Drake, however. Drake needed reasons to leave, not reasons to stick around and meet one of his favorite authors. Regan was prepared to give him those reasons to leave, preferably without bloodshed.

  “I appreciate you coming so quickly.” Drake moved some magazines off the couch. “Have a seat.”

  “I’ll stand. The reason I came quickly is because I want you the hell out of my town.”

  “Sorry.” Drake sank into an easy chair. “Not leaving. Not yet, anyway. It took me a week of hiking and hanging out in this cabin to work up the courage to call you. But I’m slowly figuring things out. I was right to come. Being here is exactly what I need.”

  “Yeah, well that’s what it’s always been about, isn’t it? What you need. Let me tell you something, buddy.” Regan pointed a finger at him. “Six months ago you broke up my engagement. Now, just by your presence, you’re causing a problem with the new lady in my life. I’m not letting you screw with me twice in less than a year.”

  “Somebody new?” Drake’s eyebrows rose. “That’s terrific.”

  “It was, until you showed up. Now you’ve become an issue between us, and I won’t have it.” He hadn’t thought he wanted to be here, but saying that to Drake’s face felt damned good. Drake didn’t have to know that Regan’s relationship with Lily was shaky for any other reason but his presence.

  “How can I be a problem? I don’t even know her.”

  “And you won’t, if I have anything to say about it. I can’t trust you around my girlfriends, remember?”

  Drake’s expression grew bleak. “Oh, I remember, all right. It was the low point of my life.”

  “It was no walk in the park for me, either, asshole.”

  “I’m sure it wasn’t.” Drake gazed at him. “I’ll never be able to make it up to you, either.”

  “You’ve got that right.”

  Drake swept an arm around the room. “As you can see, I’ve done some reading in the past week.”

  “Yeah. So what?”

  “I’m serving as my own therapist, which is always dicey, but near as I can tell, I was jealous and couldn’t admit it to myself. So I acted like an idiot.”

  “Jealous? You wanted Jeannette?” He remembered what Lily had asked. Maybe he had missed the obvious, after all.

  “No, I didn’t want Jeannette. I wanted something you had. I wanted your...your self-confidence.”

  “My what?”

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. You’ve always had that basic knowledge of who you are and what you want. You went to that Buck Brannaman clinic and you got it instantly, whereas I just faked it. You’re ten times the vet I am.” He held Regan’s gaze. “I’ve been pea-green with envy since day one, O’Connelli.”

  Regan stared at him in stunned silence. If he’d had a million years to analyze the situation, he never would have come up with that.

  “You want some coffee?”

  “Yeah. Guess so.” He walked over to the couch and sat down. Moments later, Drake handed him a mug of hot coffee, and he took it with a nod of thanks.

  He used the familiarity of sipping coffee to buy himself some time and gather his thoughts. At last he had something of a handle on what Drake had confessed, but he was confused. “What you’re saying makes no sense. You were the one with all the important connections. I was the poor kid on a scholarship. You belonged in that world. Your parents guaranteed our clinic would be a huge success. You had everything. I was riding on your coattails the whole time.”

  “Nope. Not true. I had the connections, but you had the grades. I had the trust-fund money, but you had the difficult-to-define qualities of a great vet. I needed you. If I’d tried to go it alone, I would have failed. I don’t have the genius for the profession that you do. For your information, I got somebody else to fill your spot, but they don’t have your skill. The clinic’s about to go under.”

  Regan frowned. “I’m sorry.” Surprisingly, he was. He’d put a lot of himself into building that practice, and he hated to think of it dying.

  “It shouldn’t survive. I’m not cut out for the profession. I’m a huge disappointment to my parents, but they’ve always suspected you were propping me up. Two weeks ago I told them why you left. I’ll be surprised if they don’t disinherit me.” He shrugged. “And amazingly, I don’t give a shit.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “That’s what I’m here to find out. Until now, other people have told me what I’m supposed to want. I need to figure out what I actually want.” He glanced at Regan. “But that’s not why I asked you to come and see me. I crapped all over your relationship with Jeannette. I know sorry doesn’t cut it, but short of giving you a kidney, I don’t know what else I can do but say that I’m deeply sorry. That’s not how you treat a friend.”

  Regan grinned, which shocked the hell out of both of them, judging from Drake’s expression. “A kidney? You’d give me a kidney?”

  And just like that, the tension eased. The old familiar spark was back in Drake’s eyes. “You might not want it, dude. I boozed it up pretty good in college. But if you need one, I’m there for you.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. You never know.”

  “So what about this new lady? What’s she like?”

  “Terrific, but there are problems.” Regan thought one might be solved, but she might require evidence. Maybe if she was blown away by his renewed friendship with Drake, she’d listen to his ideas about learning to say no. “Would you like to meet her?”

  Drake froze. “That would be okay with you?”

  “Sure.” Regan gave him the evil eye. “But if I ever think, for one second, that you would—”

  “God, no. I’ve worked too hard to fix this mess.” He rubbed his chin. “Guess I should shave first, huh?”

  “I should probably present you like this, just to guarantee she won’t take a shine to you, but as a measure of my faith in your trustworthiness, yeah, why don’t you shave?”

  * * *

  BY LATE MORNING, Lily still hadn’t contacted Morgan about listing the property. She kept finding other things to do. She made a sign, which she’d have laminated before she left, but she hung it on the front gate for now because a sign was definitely called for. If it looked like rain, she’d bring it in. It read: “Sorry, but our barn is at capacity. Please take a flier for other options.”

  To go along with the sign, she planned to install an information tube at the gate and keep it stocked with copies of the list she’d made up earlier this morning. She’d posted a prominent notice on the website requiring a phone call in advance of bringing a horse to Peaceful Kingdom. But because of her previous lax policy, people still might drive up to the gate unannounced and expect to drop off a horse. She didn’t want a future owner to have to deal with that.

  On impulse, she spent some time out in the paddock, loving on the horses, and some more time with Wilbur and Harley, and even a few minutes talking to the chickens. She’d miss all those critters. And not just a little bit, either. She’d miss them as if she’d suddenly developed a hole in her heart. Somewhere during her tour of the place, she began to reconsider her decision to leave.

  After all, she’d turned away a horse. She’d come up with a list of alternative rescue operations, she’d posted a notice on the website and she’d made a sign to hang on the gate. The fence company had set up physical boundaries that made her life easier. But she’d needed some mental boundaries, and now she had them.

  At last she stood in front of her green-and-orange house and admired the flowers blooming their little hearts out. Someone new might repaint, and that didn’t sit well with her. They might forget to water the flowers. They might not love potbellied pigs.

  Spreading her arms wide, she twirled around. “I’m staying!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. “You hear me, horses, pigs and chickens? I’m staying!”

  About that time Regan’s truck pulled up to the gate, and her bubble of happy optimism burst. She didn’t want to hear how he’d chewed out his best friend and ordered him to leave Jackson Hole. She loved Regan, but if he insisted on clutching that anger to his heart, then... Her breath caught. She loved him? Well, of course she did. That’s why she was so upset with him for the way he was handling his problem with Drake.

  She waited as he unlocked the gate, got back in his truck and drove into the yard. Wait a minute. Someone was in the passenger seat. Her heart began pounding. If that man was who she thought he was, then maybe all was not lost.

  The guy got out. His coffee-colored hair was on the longish side, but after years at Berkeley, she was used to that look. He was wearing a ratty old college sweatshirt and scruffy jeans with sneakers. That also reminded her of Berkeley. He had on shades that looked remarkably like the ones Regan used to wear. Maybe he needed protection, too.

  Regan walked toward her, his smile hopeful. “Lily, I’d like you to meet Drake Brewster.”

  Her chest tightened. Regan had done it. He’d accepted his best friend’s apology, and then he’d brought him home to her as a peace offering.

  Turning to the man who had betrayed Regan, she wondered how much courage he’d required to come here and ask for forgiveness. Quite a bit, probably. She held out her hand. “I’m happy to meet you, Drake Brewster.”

  “Same here, ma’am.” He took off his shades to reveal startling green eyes. “Regan’s told me a lot about you.” His accent made him sound like a plantation owner from Gone with the Wind.

  “Oh? Like what?”

  “That you’re brilliant, and generous, and beautiful. Just between you and me, I think the guy’s in love with you.”

  “Hey!” Regan frowned at Drake, but his mouth twitched at the corners, as if he might be holding back laughter. “Don’t go poking your nose in my business.”

  Drake shrugged. “Just makin’ an observation.”

  “Well, go observe somewhere else, okay? Take a stroll around the property or something. I need to talk to Lily privately.”

  Drake placed a hand on his chest in exaggerated shock. “Lord, boy! Are you telling me to get lost when I just got here? Where I come from, that’s not how we treat our guests. No, sir.”

  “Okay, then go in the house and make yourself some coffee. Have a beer. Have a mint julep. Sheesh. I’d forgotten you were such a pain in the ass.”

  “Okay. I’ll leave. But don’t louse this up. She’s obviously a find. Close the deal, boy, or mark my words, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

  Lily watched them with wonder and a bubbling kind of joy. Men didn’t joke around like that unless they were close. As for the topic of conversation, that sent excitement skittering through her.

  “Advice appreciated. Now git.”

  With a martyred sigh, Drake trudged off toward the house.

  Regan turned back to Lily, his expression tender. Nudging back his hat, he closed the distance between them. “I saw the sign on the gate.”

  “I put that up after I turned away a horse.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “You did what?”

  “I figured that whoever took over didn’t need yet another horse to deal with. Besides, the guy had some nerve, just driving up to my gate without calling ahead. But FYI, you can’t take over, because I’m staying.”

  “Is that so?” His mouth twitched again, as if he was having trouble holding back a grin. “Does that mean you don’t need me anymore?”

  “Oh, I need you.” That came across with a little more emotion than she’d intended, but her feelings were running high at the moment.

  He drew her into his arms. “Good, because I need you. And an FYI for you, Brewster totally jumped the gun, but he was right. I’m madly in love with you.”

  Joy thrummed through her as she looped her arms around his neck. “How convenient. I just discovered that I’m madly in love with you, too.”

  He pulled her in tight. “So what are we going to do about that?”

  “Nothing right now. We have a guest.”

  “So we do. Damn. I brought him as Exhibit A, but I forgot about the fact that he’d stick around.”

  The screen door opened. “Have you proposed yet, genius?”

  “Go back in the house, Brewster!”

  “Better get on with it.” The door banged shut.

  Regan looked into her eyes. “He ruined the suspense.”

  “I don’t care.” If he weren’t holding on to her, she might lift up into the sky like a helium balloon. She was just that happy.

  “Will you marry me, Lily King?”

  “Yes. Yes, I will.”

  The screen door creaked open again. “How about now? Have you accomplished what you came to do?”

  Regan sighed. “I have one more important thing to take care of. I’m going to kiss this woman until her eyes roll back in her head. You might want to give us some privacy for that.”