A Texas-Sized Secret (Texas Cattleman's Club: Blackmail 6)

Pushing herself out of the chair, still wrestling with her thoughts, Naomi walked to the set. Distracted, she took her place in the center of the stage.

“Hey, hey,” Eddie said. “Find your smile again, Naomi. We’ve got to finish this segment.”

“Right.” She shook off the dark thoughts, focused again on the moment and resolved to put all her energies into making this the best show she could.

* * *

Toby led the way into the stable, glancing over his shoulder at Clay Everett. As a former rodeo champ, Clay was the best judge of horseflesh in the county—not counting Toby himself, of course. Clay had left the rodeo behind after a bull-riding accident that had been bad enough to leave him with a slight limp. And a part of the man still missed it, Toby knew. The competition, the intensity of a seven-second ride that could win a trophy or break your heart. But he was settled now in Royal on his own ranch, and horses were still a big part of his life.

Of course there was more to Clay than being a successful rancher. His company, Everest, installed cloud infrastructure for corporations and was in demand by everyone with half a brain. Though Clay was a hell of a businessman, his heart was still at his ranch. The man was much like Toby in that way. Didn’t matter how many inventions Toby came up with or how his business interests ate up his time, the ranch fed his soul.

There were twenty stalls in Toby’s stables, but only eleven of them were occupied at the moment. Clay was here to see one of Toby’s treasures—a beautiful chestnut mare called Rain.

“I brought her in from the south pasture this morning. Thought you’d want to take a close look at her before sealing the deal.”

“You thought right,” Clay said and stopped alongside Toby at the stall’s half door. Inside the enclosure, the beautiful horse stood idly nosing at the fresh straw on the floor. When Toby clucked his tongue, the mare looked up, then moved to greet him.

“She’s a beauty,” Clay said, reaching out to stroke the flat of his hand along the horse’s neck.

The mare actually seemed to preen under the attention. Clay laughed. “Yeah, you know you’re something special, don’t you?”

“She does.” Toby watched Clay feed the mare an apple he’d brought along just for that reason. “She’s two years old, good health—Scarlett did a full physical on her last week.”

“Scarlett’s word’s good enough for me,” Clay said, stroking the horse’s nose. “Yeah, you still want to sell her, I want her.”

“Deal,” Toby said and gave the mare one longing look. Raising horses also meant you had to sell them, too. You couldn’t keep them all. But every time he sold a horse, he felt the loss like a physical pang. Still, he knew Clay would be good to her, and Toby would get a chance to see her once in a while.

“We’ll go up to the house, have a beer and take care of business.”

“Sounds good,” Clay said. Then he slanted Toby a look. “I hear you and Naomi are getting married.”

Getting married. The words didn’t send a clawing sense of dread and panic ripping through him. After Sasha walked out on him, Toby had pulled back from anything even remotely resembling a relationship. Now here he was, engaged, going to be a father, and it felt...good.

Toby blew out a breath, tipped the brim of his Stetson back a bit and nodded. Here it was. He was going to look into his friend’s eyes and lie to him. But, hell. A lie to protect Naomi didn’t bother him a bit. “When you’ve got a baby coming, it’s time to get married.”

Clay’s eyebrows lifted. “Hadn’t heard the baby part of the rumor. My source is slipping.”

Toby grinned. “Times are sad when you can’t count on the gossip chain to be thorough.”

“Can’t believe how the men in this town are getting caught in the marriage trap.” Clay shook his head as if very sad for all his friends. The man’s smile, though, told Toby he was enjoying all this. “Wes Jackson is a man I thought would never go down that road, and look at him now.”

Toby had been thinking the same thing just a few months ago. Watching Wes reconnect with the woman he loved and discover he had a daughter had hit Toby hard at the time. Back then he’d felt the same way Clay did now, that somehow Wes had set himself up for pain. Funny how your ideas could change so dramatically in just a few months. Of course, he reminded himself, he wasn’t in love with Naomi. This was a bargain between friends. Which was why it would work.

“He’s happy.” Toby braced both feet wide apart, folding his arms across his chest. Just because he wasn’t looking for love didn’t mean he couldn’t recognize it when he saw it. “Hell, he practically glows when he’s around Belle. And as for his daughter, Caro, he’s become such a whiz at sign language he’s talking about teaching it to a few of us so we can talk secretly to each other in the TCC board meetings.”

Sunlight speared through the open stable doors, pouring spears of gold into the shadowy interior. The building smelled of horses and hay—one of Toby’s favorite scents.

Nodding thoughtfully, Clay said, “Not a bad plan there. But not the point of what I was saying. It’s this whole wedding plague that’s sweeping through Royal. It’s picking the men off one by one.”

“A plague?” Toby laughed.

“It sure as hell seems contagious,” Clay said. Ticking them off on his fingers, he continued. “There’s Deacon and Hutch and Tom Knox.”

“Tom doesn’t count,” Toby interrupted. “He and Emily were already married.”

“Yeah, but they were separated, now they’re not,” Clay pointed out. “Then there’s Shane and now you.”

Toby laughed shortly and shook his head. “I’m not sick—so not contagious, no worries there. I’m not caught in a trap, either, man. I’m marrying my best friend.” And as he said it, Toby again felt the rightness of it. There was no risk in this marriage. No worry about falling for a woman and having her walk out, taking half his heart with her.