The Trouble With Cowboys Read Online Free Page B

that there’s a child involved. He’s sorry, and he still wants to marry her.”
    “So he says. Look, once a cheater, always a cheater. Isn’t that what Mom always said?”
    “Mom was married four times.”
    Sierra rolled her eyes. “Life isn’t like your Jane Austen novels, Annie. Times have changed. Women don’t have to put up with that stuff, nor should we. If she lets him off the hook this time, he’ll just do it again.”
    Sierra seemed so sure, but Annie still didn’t know. How could she advise a woman to break up with the father of her child when she wasn’t certain? What if she steered the reader wrong?
    “Why did Midge have to give me this one on my first try?”
    “I’m telling you, it’s clear-cut. Betrayed in Billings already knows what to do—she just needs you to tell her she’s right so she can find the courage to do it.”
    Annie frowned at the letter. “I didn’t get that at all.”
    “It’s in the subtext.”
    She read it again. “Or maybe she’s trying to find the courage to forgive him and only needs to hear me say it.”
    Sierra shook her head. “If you don’t believe me, ask Shay.”
    Maybe she should. “Or maybe I’ll just pray about it.”
    “When’s it due?”
    “This Wednesday. Midge wants to avoid a lapse.” She’d already written a note to the readers for her last horse column.
    “Well, you still have time to mull it over—not that I think you need to.”
    Annie took her dishes to the sink and rinsed her bowl. “Olivia asked about you at church.” Shay and Travis’s daughter adored Sierra.
    “She’s a sweetheart. She always asks me how I fix my hair and where I get my clothes.”
    “She looks up to you.” Unspoken message: pull it together or you’ll lead a little girl astray.
    “I’ll finish those,” Sierra said, ignoring her hint altogether. “You should go for a ride. The weather’s gorgeous.”
    “I think I might. Pepper’s probably forgotten who I am.”
    “You don’t forget the one who feeds you.”
    A few minutes later Annie headed out the front door and toward the barn. Pepper nickered softly as she approached the pen. The Arabian was mostly white, with tiny flecks of gray. When her grandfather had presented him for her fifteenth birthday, he’d said it looked as if God had shaken some pepper over him. The name had stuck.
    Annie finished saddling the horse and struck out toward her friend’s pasture. Shay and Travis McCoy had a huge spread, doubly so since they’d married and joined properties the year before. Shay had told her she was welcome anytime, and since her own property was so small, Annie took her up on it regularly.
    She nudged Pepper to a canter and felt the wind take her shoulder-length hair. It tugged at her shirt and smacked her cool cheeks. She gave the horse his head, and he galloped across rolling green hills toward a ridge that dipped down to a bubbling creek.
    They rode as one, their bodies moving together effortlessly. It reminded Annie of the way Shay and Travis had danced in tandem the weekend before. Much as she loved her horse, she couldn’t help thinking it would be nice to share that kind of easy harmony with a man someday . . .
    John Oakley sprang to mind then, and the sinking feeling that accompanied the thought of him did nothing to buoy her spirits. Maybe she had been reading too many romance novels. Or maybeGod wanted her to remain forever single, like Paul in the Bible. She hoped not. She was hardly old at twenty-four, but she felt much older.
    Lord, I hope there’s someone out there for me , she prayed as the sun dipped behind the clouds. Between keeping Sierra on the right track and my financial struggles, I feel like I’m carrying the world on my shoulders. And this new column isn’t helping. Show me what to tell this woman. I don’t want to steer her wrong .
    She rode and prayed until Pepper grew winded, then she headed back to the barn, dismounted, and unsaddled the horse. Pepper’s sides