Roping the Cowboy Billionaire - Emmy Eugene Page 0,74

at him with doleful eyes. He inspected her legs and feet, saying, “She needs new shoes.”

Beth made a note, and she had a feeling a lot of the horses would need new shoes. She quieted the rising panic by reminding herself she had a budget for this.

After the fourth horse, Beth swallowed, breathed, and asked, “Have you heard of the Sweetheart Classic?” she asked.

Trey looked up at her as he exited the stall. “Sure,” he said.

“You guys ever enter that?” She couldn’t quite hold his gaze, and she looked to the fifth stall in the barn.

Trey went toward it. “No,” he said over his shoulder. “Number one, it’s not a qualifying race. Number two, it’s…odd.”

“Odd?” Beth’s heart skipped a beat and then picked it up again.

Trey entered the stall with Midnight Moonlight and did the inspection. “Shoes,” he said. “He’s got something with his teeth too. There’s spots on this side.” He had his hands in the horse’s mouth, and Beth wanted to tell him to be careful.

She made the notes while he joined her. “The Sweetheart Classic isn’t horse racing. It’s an amateur community event.”

“Right,” she said. “There’s still money to be won, and a horse.”

Trey smiled at her like she was a small child with big dreams that would never come true. “I suppose.”

“We can’t all be billionaires,” she said, her idea of asking him to enter the Classic with her disappearing. She turned and left him standing in the barn, her goal the stables past the walking circle and the huge garden she planted every year.

The sight of it made her tired, because it was time to harvest, and she had only done about a quarter of the work. There was much to do following the harvest too. She knew how and had made applesauce in the past. Creamed corn she froze in bags. Pumpkin pie filling. Squash soup.

She didn’t want the food to go to waste, but she couldn’t possibly harvest it all and preserve it too.

“Hey now,” Trey said, catching up to her. “What are you talking about?”

“I want to enter the Classic,” she said, keeping her gaze straight ahead. Talking to him about this while she was slightly irritated with him was actually a good idea. She could deliver the facts and send him home to think about her proposal.

“You’ve got a horse you think can win?”

“Yes,” Beth said. “Somebody’s Lady.”

“Then enter her.”

“She needs some training up,” Beth said. “But I could get her ready. I just can’t enter her.”

“Why not?”

She sighed and paused in the shade of a tall willow oak. In just a few more weeks, all the leaves would turn a beautiful shade of red and fall to the ground. Beth wouldn’t be able to rake them by herself, and she pressed against the hysteria threatening to overtake her.

She just had to keep swimming. She wouldn’t drown.

“It’s the Sweetheart Classic,” she said. “Run on or near Valentine’s Day. You can only enter a horse as a…” She cleared her throat. “Only…”

“Married couples who own the horse together can enter.” Trey looked up from his phone, shock plain on his face. “You have to be married to enter the Sweetheart Classic.”

“That’s right,” she said, walking again. Looking at him was too hard.

“The prize money is half a million dollars,” he called from behind her.

Beth knew, and she couldn’t even imagine what that kind of money could do for her and TJ. She shook her head at her idiocy. She’d allowed herself to dream, and she shouldn’t have done that.

Trey caught up to her again, and Beth cut a glance at him. He seemed thoughtful, and she didn’t want to interrupt him.

At the same time, she needed to get these words out before they poisoned her. “I was thinking you and I could enter.”

“We’re not married,” he said.

“We could get married,” she said, her whole face heating with just those words.

“The deadline to enter is November first.”

“Yes.”

“That’s what? Seven weeks from now?”

“How long do you think it takes to get married?”

Trey put his hand on her arm and said, “Can you stop? I need to get something straight.”

She stopped, her heartbeat pounding furiously fast in her chest. She looked everywhere but at him, and he simply waited for her to meet his gaze. When she finally did, she saw his carefully masked face and had no idea what he was thinking.

“Start at the beginning,” he said.

She looked away, and he reached up and gently guided her face back toward his. “Look me in