His Texas Bride Read Online Free Page B

Ellie McBride’s.
    But he wasn’t that oblivious. She was obviously talking about him leaving town without a word all those years ago, for which he owed her an apology, or at least an explanation.
    He cleared his throat. Ellie was still looking off the way Tyler had left in a teenage huff. Buck was used to his son’s behavior by now, but he imagined it was new to Ellie.
    “I’m sorry about Tyler,” he began, then paused when Ellie’s wide-eyed gaze flashed to him, her eyebrow raised as if to ask him a question.
    “He’s been through a lot.” Her voice was soft and gentle when she talked about Tyler.
    “And I’m sorry I didn’t handle things better,” Buck continued gruffly.
    “You’ve been through a lot, too.”
    Buck sighed loudly. “Will you please stop making excuses for me? I’m trying to say I’m sorry.”
    She looked him straight in the eye. “Apology accepted,” she said simply.
    Buck didn’t remember Ellie being so erratic with her emotions. One second she was ripping him to shreds about his behavior; the next second she was blowing it off as nothing. Even as a teenager, she’d been extraordinarily levelheaded, a characteristic Buck especially admired in her.
    At least until it had come to the building of the new highway, the Texas government’s bright idea to make a shortcut, a straight link between Dallas and Houston, which had caused what had once been a small, quiet ranching town to brim over with tourists. With that stupid highway forced on them, Ellie’s pragmatism had gotten the best of her, not that, in Buck’s estimation, the government program had done considerably much to improve Ellie’s lot in life.
    Therapy Ranch, indeed.
    “Look,” he began tentatively. “It’s good I caught you alone for a few minutes. I believe I owe you an…” Here he hesitated. The first word that sprang to his lips had been apology, the word Ellie had just used when he’d said he was sorry, but that wasn’t what he wanted to say. “An explanation.”
     
    Ellie looked at him calmly, her arms relaxed down at her sides. “For?” she inquired lightly.
    Ellie already knew what this was about. It was obvious to her that Buck was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, and she suspected coming back to Ferrell hadn’t helped matters any. As the old saying went, it was like putting salt in a wound, though admittedly Ellie wasn’t certain exactly which wounds had carried Buck from Ferrell so quickly all those years ago.
    Nor did she care. She was way past that, she told herself again. But she did want to offer her old friend comfort, especially in his time of need.
    “Go on,” she encouraged, rustling up a smile for him.
    “I know you must have been pretty angry with me when I left the way I did.” Buck jammed his fingers into his sandy brown hair, making it stand on end.
    “Buck, that was twenty years ago,” she reminded him gently, her tone carefully neutral. Why did he want to dig up the past when there was so much to deal with right now, in the present?
    “Still,” he drawled slowly. “You must want to know what happened back then.”
    Ellie shrugged. “If you want to tell me, I’ll listen. But, Buck, the truth is, what happened all those years ago doesn’t really matter to me anymore.”
    Buck stepped back, looking stunned, as if she’d slapped his face, not simply spoken a few quiet words.
    “What?” she asked, thoroughly confused by his unusual behavior. Wasn’t Buck relieved to find she hadn’t been carrying a grudge all these years?
    “It didn’t matter to you that I left?” He arched a questioning eyebrow at her.
    Ellie frowned. “Of course it mattered. A lot of people in this town thought— I thought—you and I had a future together. I realize now, of course, looking back on it, that it was just a teenage romance.”
    “Was that all it was for you?” Buck cringed. Ellie thought he looked like he wanted to yell. Or punch his fist right through the wall of