Wild Horses. B.J. Daniels

poked her and pointed toward their father. Ainsley recognized the town busybody, Mabel Murphy, talking to Buckmaster an instant before he scowled and looked in her direction.

      “I’d say Daddy just got the news,” Bo said with a laugh, and threw back another glass of champagne. “As for Livie marrying Cooper...” They all followed her gaze to see Delia with her hand on Cooper’s arm and in deep conversation. “Delia Rollins is Cooper’s Achilles’ heel.”

      It wouldn’t be Delia who would keep the wedding from happening, Ainsley thought. Olivia had bigger concerns than Cooper’s former girlfriend.

      * * *

      COOPER SPOTTED OLIVIA sitting alone in the pines and had just started for her when Delia grabbed his arm.

      “Dance with the future maid of honor?” she said with a grin.

      “I’d love to but I have to find my fiancée. Maybe later.”

      “I’m sure she’s around here somewhere. Anyway, you have all night to find her. You might not have all night to dance with me.”

      He’d always liked Delia. They’d started out as friends when he’d first gotten to town. He wished now he’d left it at that. “Delia,” he said, and sighed. The silly game she’d been playing of apparently trying to make Livie jealous was wearing thin for him.

      “Come on, there is nothing wrong in two old friends sharing a dance.”

      “We aren’t old friends and you’re Livie’s maid of honor.”

      “So I am,” she said, and laughed. “I couldn’t have been more surprised when she asked me. I’m sure you were, too.”

      He’d tried to talk Livie out of it. “Why would you do that?” he’d asked when Livie had told him.

      “Because she and I were best friends for years. We made a pact when we were eleven to be the maid or matron of honor at each other’s weddings.”

      “Livie, you’re not best friends now.”

      “No, but I wish we could be better friends. I want to put the past behind us.”

      Now, he said, “Livie takes her promises seriously.”

      Delia scoffed. “Apparently. We were kids. I was the skinny, scrawny one. We’ve changed a lot since then,” she said, and added with a wink, “as you know.”

      He removed her hand from his arm. “Like I said, I need to go see my fiancée.”

      “Promise me one last dance for old times’ sake,” Delia said.

      “Maybe later.” At least, he hoped there would be a later at the party. Given the way Livie was behaving, he had his doubts.

      Sidestepping Delia, he headed for the stand of pines and his fiancée. From the moment he’d hired on to the Hamilton Ranch, there’d been Olivia. She’d hung around while he was working with the horses. He’d been captivated by her—her smell, her laugh, her intensity when she set her eyes on something she wanted. He’d never known a woman who’d been raised like her and couldn’t imagine just snapping his fingers and getting anything he wanted.

      He’d told himself to keep his distance. But even with him fighting it, within no time, she consumed all his thoughts, all his time, all his energy. He found her infuriating and irresistible, challenging and charming. He had fallen so hard for her that it scared him.

      Unlike Livie, he wasn’t impulsive. He planned. He worked hard for what he wanted. He thought things out. Like this engagement and upcoming wedding. Everything had been moving way too fast for him.

      From the get-go, though, he’d been reluctant to get involved with a Hamilton girl. The boy from the wrong side of the tracks and a Hamilton? Once he fell for her, he’d wished more times than he wanted to count that she wasn’t Buckmaster Hamilton’s daughter.

      As he approached the bench where she was sitting, he realized with a shock that Olivia was crying. Stepping to her, he knelt down in front of the bench. “Livie, what is it?”

      “We have to talk,” she said, hurriedly wiping at her tears. “Let’s go into the house,” she said, getting to her feet. “I thought this could wait, but it can’t.”

      His insides turned to ice. “Livie, tell me what it is.”

      “Not here,” she said, taking his hand and leading him around the edge of the ballroom toward the house. He saw several people at the party looking in their direction, Delia among them.

      Delia had tried to warn him when he’d told her he was seeing Livie. “Oh, Cooper, you don’t want to get involved with one of them, trust me.”

      It had been too late. He’d already fallen.

      “Livie’s not like that.”

      Delia had laughed. “She’s Buckmaster Hamilton’s daughter and she will always be his daughter. Do yourself a favor and run as far and fast as you can in the opposite direction.” She’d made the same argument he had made to himself. “She isn’t like you and me. We know what it’s like to be poor, to come from the wrong family and have to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. She’s fascinated with you now because you’re different from anyone else she’s dated. But when it comes time to get married, she’s going to want more than you will ever be able to give her.”

      Now he feared Delia was right as he and Livie worked their way around the crowd, away from all the noise, to the quiet of the house. “Let’s go into Daddy’s den. There is something I have to tell you,” she said, making his heart begin to ache.

      “Tell me what this is about,” he demanded as they walked down the empty hallway even though he was afraid he already knew. She’d changed her mind. Just like that. She’d insisted on getting married sooner than he’d wanted, she hadn’t been able to wait for the engagement party, and now she’d realized what she was doing and was backing out.

      “Do we really have to do this now?” he asked as she led him toward her father’s plush, wood-paneled den. He felt himself getting angry. “It’s our engagement party, Livie, a party that you and your sisters and father insisted on, you might recall.” He balked, stopping in the doorway to the den, digging in his heels as he had so many other times with her. “Just tell me.”

      * * *

      OLIVIA KNEW THE timing was terrible. The thought almost made her laugh. There was no good time for what she had to tell him.

      “Would you please close the door and sit down?” she asked impatiently when he remained stubbornly standing in the doorway.

      With obvious reluctance, he closed the door and seemed to brace himself. “Just say you don’t want to marry me and get it over with. I’ve been expecting this.”

      She shook her head in astonishment, her emotions running as wild as the horses Cooper tamed. The man never ceased to amaze her. “You’ve been expecting me to break our engagement?”

      “That’s what this is about, isn’t it? Your father reminded me again tonight that you’re a Hamilton and that you require the finer things in life, things that apparently he feels I can’t give you fast enough.” Cooper’s eyes narrowed. “It isn’t as if you haven’t made it clear you feel the same way.”

      Livie sighed. Every fight they’d had was over her father’s offers of financial help. Buckmaster Hamilton lived for his daughters. He couldn’t understand Cooper’s stubbornness any more than she could. Coop had refused both land and money, both graciously offered. He was determined to do everything himself, no matter how hard it was or how long it took.

      But none of that mattered now because Livie doubted there was going to be a wedding, anyway. “Please. Sit down. That isn’t what I need to talk to you about,” she said, fighting the ever-present nausea. Her head felt as if it were spinning. The last thing she wanted was to break her engagement, but she figured