Betting on Hope (9 page)

“I’m sorry you’re hurt and I’m getting you to the doc to take care of that, but this isn’t exactly my fault. Maybe we should leave this conversation for another time.”

“Sure, maybe after we get back and one of your horses tosses me off in the name of fun?” she said, in a dismal tone.

He slid an accusing glance her way. “You didn’t have to offer up that challenge like you did.”

Her green eyes flared. “You were the one who touched me. There’s no touching during an interview. And then you had to turn those honey-colored eyes so the camera could read your concern.”

“Isn’t that a pretty way of puttin’ it? I was concerned, if you have to know.”

“So, the best plan of action would have been to keep that concern to yourself.
Not
let the public see it and put their own spin on it.”

“Like I said, you’re the one who threw out that ridiculous bet to me.”

“I was nervous. And you were the one holding my hand.”

He scowled and watched the road. “This is going to be a long two months. Just so you know, I don’t want to do this, but my sponsors pay me to do the promotions they want and that includes this. They obviously want this bad, because every one of them are on board. My hands are tied.”

“Kind of like you tied mine when you insisted we go outside the Bull Barn and see your horse? I’m in just as deep, or deeper, than you are, cowboy. Have you seen how many people have looked at that video and watched me—” she clamped her mouth tight and stared out the windshield.

Guilt piled on Tru like a mudslide. He’d never called and checked on her after he’d learned that he was going to be forced into this situation. After realizing she’d probably set him up. “Look, I’m sorry about that. I really am. I had no idea. But you set me up.”

Her expression could have melted the Antarctic. “Set you up?”

“That bet was premeditated.”

“How was I supposed to know you were going to brag about teaching anyone to ride? And do you seriously think I have any interest in getting on a cutting horse after what happened? My coordination isn’t my pride and joy. It’s embarrassing, but true.”

She sounded completely disgusted with herself and authentic. And just like the day of the interview, he found himself wanting to make her feel better. “I thought it was those red high heels. It was a poor choice of attire.”

“If the Bull Barn had had a paved parking lot like a normal business establishment, then my shoe choice wouldn’t have mattered,” she huffed, her cheeks burning prettily.

“I hate to break it to you, but Wishing Springs isn’t Houston. We don’t find the need to pave every extra piece of ground there is.” He pulled into the parking lot—the paved parking lot she noted—of a small red brick building. Health Clinic was written above the door and there was a
closed
sign in the window.

“It’s Monday,” Tru grumbled, put the truck in reverse, and headed out of the parking lot. “I forgot what day it was. Clinic is open Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.” He glanced at her. She might be putting up a good front, but she was in pain. Solomon had bitten her hard and deep, though their arguing had distracted her.

“That’s okay, I’ll be fine.”

“No, you need to see a doctor. Doc Hallaway will fix you right up.” Tru turned into a parking lot a half mile down the road and parked between two trucks.

The sign read Hallaway Veterinary.

“But—” Maggie’s brows scrunched. “That’s a veterinary clinic.”

“Yup. That’d be right. Doc’s the next best thing. He’ll fix you right up. Most folks around here think he’s a better doctor than most.”

“But—”

“Trust me, you’ll be fine.”

He was out of the truck and around to her side by the time her feet touched the ground.

“But, but this is a
vet.
An
animal
doctor,” she said, eyes huge.

“Yes, but he’s a very good vet.”

The man had brought her to see a veterinarian.

Feeling as if she’d been thrown into a scene of the movie
Doc Hollywood,
Maggie followed Tru inside the animal clinic, feet dragging.

Only because her wound was yelling for attention did she ignore the need to protest—that and she was in shock.

A vet. Seriously?

There was no one behind the reception desk and the place was empty except for two men who jumped up from their seats smiling the minute she walked in.

Obviously twins, each had sandy brown hair, sleepy brown eyes over a long straight nose balanced by a wide mouth and identical grins.

“Hey, fellas,” Tru said giving each man a handshake. “This is Maggie Hope. Is the doc in?” Tru asked, sounding distracted as he looked toward the back.

“Maggie Hope?” asked the one in the green shirt. “The reporter?”

“What do we have here?” the twin in the blue shirt asked as Maggie moved to sit down.

“A dog bit me.” She didn’t bother correcting the reporter comment.

“A dog,” they chorused.

“Did you take the dog to see Bertha at the health clinic?” Blue-shirt-twin asked, grinning.

“Funny, Doonie,” Tru drawled, looking around. “Where’s Doc?”

“He’s out there vaccinating a trailer-load of goats.”

“I’ll be right back.” Tru strode around the counter and headed down a hallway and out the door at the end.

The twins introduced themselves as Doonie and Doobie Burke.

“Obviously our parents had a sense of humor,” Doobie in the green shirt said.

“I got the good name, he got the weird name,” Doonie in the blue shirt added with a grin.

She chuckled despite her throbbing hand. “I love your names.” Her mind was working on how to use them in her column. She was going to have to figure out how to approach this next column, how to make it work. Interesting.

“I’m the mayor of Wishing Springs,” the one in the blue shirt said. Doonie, she thought. “But me and Doobie own the real estate agency in town.”

“That’s right,” the other man grinned. “When you need a property, just give us a call.”

“I doubt I’ll need to buy any real estate. If I do, though, I’ll come see you.”

Both men smiled again and came to stare intently at her wound.

“That is nasty,” one said.

“Doc’s got enough needles in here to fix a few horses, though, so you’re gonna be just fine,” one offered, chuckling.

Maggie was not reassured.

“If it leaves a nasty scar you could make it into a tattoo of a flower, or a Tasmanian devil,” the other, Doobie, said or was it Doonie? Maggie was confused.

Their parents must have had a great sense of humor to have given them these confusing names. Maybe that was where they got their quick-witted personalities. Whereever it came from, Maggie was glad to have someone to take her mind off her hand. And the pain in her side that was Tru Monahan.

He reappeared within five minutes followed by an older man with wild, thick white hair and busy eyebrows above penetrating pale blue eyes.

“Well, don’t just sit there, get her into my office,” the man barked the moment he saw her.

Even if she’d wanted to run—which she was thinking more and more about doing—she couldn’t with the twins at her side. Each one took an elbow and helped her stand—as if she’d walked in with broken legs, not an injured hand.

“How’s the pain?” Tru asked, moving aside as she was escorted past him.

She didn’t answer him.

The doc waved her to a chair in the examining room while digging for supplies with the other hand. The place looked clean, at least. Dogs barked from behind a door down the hall and there was a whole lot of mooing going on back there as well. If that wasn’t enough, about the time she sat down, she heard the distinct pitter-patter of something trotting down the hall. A potbellied pig burst into the room. Trotted right in and looked about as if it had business there.

Knee-high with a white body and big brown spots covering its shoulders, the pig’s skin beneath its short hair was a bright rosy pink. It studied her with big brown eyes then pranced over and stuck its pink snout into her face.

“Don’t mind Clover,” Tru said, grinning. “She thinks she’s Doc’s nurse.”

The doc turned toward her, pushed his glasses up his nose, and took hold of Maggie’s hand. He didn’t even acknowledge the presence of a pig that had Maggie leaned back against the wall to avoid contact.

The doc unwrapped her hand. “So what happened? How’d you get this?”

She looked to Tru and he answered for her. “Solomon bit her when she crawled under the bed to try and get him unstuck.”

“What’d you do to Solomon?” Doc asked, looking incredulously at her.

Clover stuck her snout into Maggie’s armpit. “I didn’t do anything to him.” She pushed the pig away, thankful she didn’t get her other hand bitten by a pig this time. She couldn’t believe he wanted to know what she’d done to the dog.

“I tried to help it. Pops”—she didn’t know Tru’s grandfather’s name, so she used what she knew—“h-he asked me to.” She decided that was easier than telling them that the poor man had been near hysterics.

“That dog is about as gentle as a lamb,” Doobie said—or Doonie—she’d forgotten which one was wearing the blue shirt.

“He was upset.”

The doc pressed an antiseptic-soaked pad to the punctures and she winced.

“What was he so riled up for?” Doobie asked. She decided she’d had it wrong and Doobie had on the green shirt, not the blue shirt.

“Because he was stuck.” Again she didn’t know what to say. She glanced at Tru looking for direction on how much to say about his Pops.

“He’s claustrophobic, maybe. Who knows,” Tru offered with a shrug for the men.

She almost smiled at his explanation and added, “You’d have been upset, too, if you were stuck”
Doobie?
Oh, fiddle, she gave up on which one was speaking.

“I wouldn’t have bitten a pretty lady’s hand for helping me. I can tell you that much,” twin-number-two said, then shot her a wide grin.

Having decided she didn’t need stitches, the doc had her hand cleaned and wrapped in no time. A good thing, too, because Maggie’s head was spinning from the questions. The twins switched from asking her about her bite to asking her about the interview and the bet.

Tru leaned against the door frame, arms crossed, watching silently. She was left hanging out on a limb all by herself except for Clover who had decided that Maggie’s lap was the perfect headrest.

She found out that the twins were friends of the doc and often hung out in his office drinking coffee in the afternoon.

“They’re a sneaky couple,” Doc told her as he finished wrapping her hand. “They pretend to be each other sometimes—we all know they do—but no one can tell them apart, so it’s hard to prove.” He looked at her over the rim of his bifocals. “I think they’re both the mayor of Wishing Springs and no one knows it.”

She laughed. The twins just grinned, not denying or confirming.

Tru gave a short snort of a laugh from across the room.

Though he was helping her out because he obviously felt guilty that his dog had bitten her, their heated discussion had made it clear that he thought she’d set him up. That put another spin on this fiasco.

Set him up?

It was crazy ridiculous.

But what was new? This entire day had been crazy.

When they finally made it out of the vet’s office, she had an arm that was feeling much better than it had when she went in—the doc had fixed her up even with the nosy pig snorting around. Thankfully, since she’d already had a tetanus shot, she didn’t have to have Doc Hallaway stick a horse needle in her—she figured she’d be grateful for anything at this point.

Honestly, nothing about her arrival in Wishing Springs was as she’d expected. Once they were back in the truck and Tru had turned it in the direction of home, she was also grateful they hadn’t been forced to participate in a reality TV show. The dog bite, the vet, the pig, and the twins would have been too farfetched. No one would believe it wasn’t scripted.

Tru just wanted to get back home. He slammed his truck door and glanced at Maggie.

“Well, that was a first,” she said, buckling up. “I’m not sure if anyone would believe anything that just happened to me. I was mauled by a pig while a vet cleaned my wound. A wound that I received after I got stuck beneath a bed with a Basset Hound.
Or
that I was the afternoon entertainment for a pair of twins with names that sounded like a a line of purses.”

Despite his suspicions about being manipulated by her, Tru chuckled. He had to admit she’d been a good sport about the whole incident. “Well, when you put it that way, you might have a problem. We do try to keep things interesting here in Wishing Springs.”

“Try?” She cleared her throat and shot him a look of disbelief.

He found it hard to pull his gaze away and focus on the road. He’d been having trouble ever since he’d found her stuck under his old bed.

The fact that his truck cab now had the faint scent of spring flowers calling to him only added to his dilemma.

He found himself wanting to pull her close, wanting to see if she tasted as good as she smelled. And that was not good, more now than ever. This attraction complicated everything. He might be attracted, but he reminded himself that she very well could have manipulated this dog-and-pony show.

It was too convenient.

How good were the show’s ratings? He’d been wondering that since the moment he’d been given the ultimatum that he had to join in on this circus. He suspected she needed PR for her column and this was proposed to benefit her and benefit Amanda’s morning show.

Still, he had no proof. He could just be wary and not let her manipulate him further. And, despite the attraction, he refused to do anything that would even begin to appear as if he were having a romance with Maggie. He wanted no part of that kind of circus again. He’d made a bad dating decision by going out with Felicity. Starlets made their living by being in the public eye so he should have thought about the old saying: Bad publicity is better than no publicity. His mistakes had been glaringly showcased by the tabloids when Felicity acted up—especially that last time. Tru didn’t like to think about the catfight.