A Cowboy's Temptation

“I haven’t succeeded yet.”

“Danielle’s flying home tonight.”

Seth stilled, everything inside him going cold. “She’s done?”

“She’s done. I just talked to Caleb. You won, big brother.”

“That’s great,” Seth managed.

“You don’t sound happy.”

“I am happy.”

“I’m ready to go,” Darby called as she made her way down the short hallway.

“Don’t you dare tell her,” Seth growled to Travis.

“She’s going to find out soon.”

“Not tonight, she’s not.” Seth needed some time to think this through. And he simply couldn’t stand the thought of upsetting Darby tonight.

* * *

“Under a hypothetical situation,” Darby began as she parked her bag in the front closet and tugged off her shoes, after Travis had dropped her off.

“What hypothetical situation?” Marta looked up from her phone where she was reading email.

“The one where I slept with Seth to distract him from fighting with me on the referendum.”

“Okay.” She brushed her thumb across the screen, scrolling, and glanced back down.

“How badly would it go…” Darby took the opposite end of the couch. “If I fell for him?”

Marta shot Darby her full attention, eyes squinting down. “As in seriously, I-think-this-is-bigger-than-the-both-of-us fell for him?”

Darby slumped back in her seat. “Right.”

“Uh-oh.” Marta set her phone on the coffee table, turning sideways on the couch and drawing up her legs.

Darby copied Marta’s posture, letting her mind go back over the evening. “He’s just… I mean, he’s intelligent, he’s thoughtful, he’s a lot more compassionate than I expected and he’s funny.”

“And sexy?”

The memories had the power to send heat coursing through Darby’s system. “Oh, so incredibly sexy.”

“So what are you going to do?” Marta asked softly.

Darby plucked at the wrinkled fabric of her slacks. “I’m trying to see a path forward. If I lose, I’m leaving. If he loses, you know, do you think he’d ever be able to get over it?”

She’d tried to imagine Seth getting past their fights, maybe coming to the conclusion that losing the railway wasn’t the end of the world, maybe giving the two of them a chance. A chance to do what, she wasn’t exactly sure. But she was sure she wanted what was between them to continue.

“A month is a long time,” Marta responded. “If he’s feeling it, too, he might get over the disappointment.”

“He might,” Darby agreed, trying not to let her hopes rise. “I never knew I could feel this way.”

Marta considered her for another long moment. “Are you already in love with him?”

Darby emphatically shook her head. “I don’t know him well enough to be in love.”

Marta chuckled. “Is there a gauge of some kind?”

“Something between one and one hundred millibars,” Darby joked in return.

Then her mind wandered off, trying to assign a number. Seventy? No, not enough. Maybe an eighty, or a glorious ninety.

Marta picked up her phone. “I bet there’s an impartial quiz available that can help you decide. Maybe something by a women’s magazine.”

She clicked her way through the screens, while Darby tried to convince herself Seth wasn’t already a hundred.

Then Marta’s expression darkened, her eyes narrowing, lips going thin. “Uh-oh.”

“Can’t find a quiz?” Darby asked.

“I just got an email from one of our railway street team members.”

Darby’s mood took a downward turn. “Did something happen?”

“He heard from a friend in Denver, whose girlfriend works at the state courthouse. A decision came down today. It referenced Lyndon Valley and the railway referendum.” Marta scrolled along the screens. “Crap!”

“What?” The pit of Darby’s stomach convulsed.

“The city appealed the District Court’s decision to the State Court of Appeals.” Marta looked up at her, expression grave. “They won.”

Darby’s nerves turned to fear. “What does that mean?” she asked slowly.

“The judge’s decision to grant the referendum was declared void and thrown out. There’s not going to be a referendum.”

Darby shot her way down the length of the couch, peering over Marta’s shoulder. “How can they do that? Why weren’t we told?”

“Technically,” said Marta, scanning the screen, “we weren’t a party to the original decision.”

“It was our petition.”

“The petition didn’t trigger the referendum. The judge decided that based on the mounting local protests.”

“That’s not fair.” Darby removed the phone from Marta’s hand and read her way through the brief article.

“Morally, no,” Marta agreed. “Legally, yes.”

“He went behind my back,” Darby ground out.

“We’d have gone behind his,” Marta replied.

“It says the decision came down at four o’clock today. That’s before I met Seth at City Hall. The whole time, the entire time we were together tonight, he already knew it was over.”

“Looks like he did,” Marta agreed.

“He knew I’d lost,” Darby continued, her anger building. “He knew I was leaving town, yet he—” She resisted an urge to throw Marta’s phone across the room.

Obviously sensing her angry instinct, Marta pried Darby’s fingers from her phone and tucked it away in her pocket.

“That’s pretty stone-cold,” said Marta.

“It’s pretty stone-cold,” Darby agreed.

Marta put a comforting hand on Darby’s shoulder. “Maybe he’s not, you know, exactly how he presented himself.”

“You think he was acting all this time?” Darby couldn’t help but think back over their conversations, their lovemaking, his confession about not liking the mayor’s role. Had they all been lies? Had she been a colossal fool?

“By romancing you, he kept you distracted,” Marta pointed out.

Darby’s anger was rapidly being replaced by mortification. There was a good chance Seth had played her. He’d played her better than she could ever have hoped to play him.

“I agreed to tone down the rhetoric,” she stated in self-disgust. “Was it all part of his master plan? Keep me busy, keep me distracted, all the while coming at it from the state level?”

“With no more public protests, there was no reason for the court not to overturn. He’s good.” Marta’s tone was laced with reluctant admiration.

“He beat us,” Darby said.

“Because we underestimated him,” Marta said, obviously going deep into thought.

“Is there anything we can do?” Darby asked, a small measure of hope coming up at the calculating expression on Marta’s face. “Can we appeal the appeal?”

“We can’t,” said Marta. “Without the referendum, the permits all become instantly valid. He’s already expropriated your land. I think they can start building the railroad tomorrow.”

Darby’s entire body slumped. “We lost. And I was completely taken in by a con artist.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I think he’s a world-class con artist.”

“It doesn’t make me feel any better.”

Darby was heartsick. She was about to lose Sierra Hotel. There was never going to be anything between her and Seth. The magical evening they’d just shared had been an illusion.

Who knew how many lies he’d told. While he was stroking her cheek and kissing her mouth, he was probably thinking about all the money his family would make shipping cattle on the railroad.

She’d given herself to him—completely, freely, honestly. She’d let him past every defense she had, and he’d been faking his feelings the entire time. He’d only run for mayor to help his community? He didn’t get a chance to focus on the big issues? He might not even run again? Ha!

He’d brought this big issue home in a way that absolutely guaranteed his re-election.

“I feel like an idiot,” she whispered to Marta.

Marta gave a heartfelt sigh. “It turns out you’re too trusting for your own good.”

“I never wanted to be trusting. I wanted to be tough. I wanted to be smart, and I wanted to be realistic.”

“You’re all of those things.”

“Not when it counts.”

“This is a big loss,” Marta agreed, in the usual no-nonsense tone that Darby had always admired. “But it’s done.”

Darby forced herself to square her shoulders. “It’s done.”

“Nobody died.”