Taming a Texas Rascal (Bad Boy Ranch #6) - Katie Lane Page 0,61
the sleeve of her dress and held it out. When Maisy walked over to get the tissue, the old women pinned her with her piercing eyes. “And speaking of love. What happened between you and Sawyer Dawson? I thought you were another woman that fell under a bad boy’s spell, but then Dixie Leigh told me you were leaving. I’m going to assume you’re not pregnant.”
She shook her head. “No, ma’am. And I never was. It was all a misunderstanding.”
Miss Gertie snorted. “With the gossipy people in this town, I can imagine how things got misunderstood. But I know a guilty looking bad boy when I see one and Sawyer looked guilty as sin when I confronted him about you.”
“He thought he was guilty, but he really wasn’t. It’s complicated.”
Miss Gertie turned her walker around and headed to a nearby bench. She sat down and patted the spot next to her. “Well, come on then. You can’t expect me to stand on my feet while you tell me a long, complicated story. Seeing as how Reba has gotten busy at the boardinghouse—or with that bad boy husband of hers—and forgotten to pick me up again, I’ve got plenty of time to kill.”
Maisy wanted to make a mad dash for her truck. She didn’t want to tell Miss Gertie what had happened between her and Sawyer. She was hoping to be long gone when the news spread about what she’d done. But when the old woman gave her a narrowed-eyed look, Maisy realized she had little choice. Like a kid called before the principal, she walked over and sat down. She figured it was best to just come out with it.
She proceeded to tell Miss Gertie the entire story. When she was finished, she sighed. “So as you can see, I’m just as mean-spirited as my daddy.” She expected Miss Gertie to give her a thorough lecture on lying. Instead, she only shook her head.
“That is a fine kettle of fish you got yourself into with your lie, but it sounds like you had good reasons to keep it going. The main one being that you didn’t want Sawyer to hate you for taking him away from something he loves. I figure even then you were starting to love him.”
“But if I hadn’t lied, he wouldn’t hate me.”
“If you hadn’t lied, Sawyer would’ve gone on avoiding you to uphold some silly oath he made to Lincoln.” Miss Gertie shook her head. “And men complain about women butting their noses into other people’s business. If Lincoln had kept his nose out of things, I figure you and Sawyer would’ve gotten together at the wedding. I saw how you two were looking at each other that night.”
Miss Gertie was probably right, and Maisy couldn’t help being a little annoyed at Lincoln. If he had stayed out of it, maybe Sawyer wouldn’t hate her. Maybe they would have had a chance for a happily ever after.
“It doesn’t matter now,” she said. “There’s no way to go back and change things. Sawyer hates me for lying to him and for telling everyone about what the doctor said.”
“If I have the choice between hate and indifference, I’ll choose hate every time,” Miss Gertie said. “Hate is just the other side of love. If you don’t care about someone, you can’t really hate them. Lucas and I hated each other for a long time, not because we didn’t like each other, but because our egos wouldn’t let us apologize and forgive. It sounds like Sawyer is pretty ticked off at you. Why would he be so ticked off if he didn’t care? If he didn’t have feelings for you, he would’ve been thrilled that he wasn’t going to be a daddy and he hadn’t broken his best friend’s trust. Instead, he told you he never wanted to see you again. That’s a pretty intense statement for someone who doesn’t care.”
“Even if he does care, he’s not going to forgive me. Just like you and Lucas wouldn’t forgive each other.”
Miss Gertie sent her a pointed look. “Then that’s it? You’re just gonna leave town and accept the way things are? That’s what I did. I accepted that Lucas hated me for not accepting his marriage proposal. But I had another choice. When he came back here after quitting the rodeo, I could’ve gone to him and told him how scared I’d been about our age difference and about losing my beloved boardinghouse and about him loving the rodeo