Betting on Hope Read Online Free PDF

in everything about her. “You certainly are. But, at this point I know the viewers out there would love to see you at least pet my horse.”
    Maggie swallowed hard and sweat dampened her armpits at the thought of stumbling out there on those rocks again with a camera rolling. And she wasn’t good with animals. A horse was big.
    Before she came up with a way out of this new kink in the plan, the overbearing cowboy was out of his seat and holding out his hand to her. There seemed no gracious way out of this fix other than to agree. Her hands clenched. She plastered on a fake smile—a cover for the urge to scream in frustration. She glanced at the cameraman—her last hope to stop this, but he already had the camera hoisted to his shoulder with a goofy grin. His helper was waving his hand in a circle that she knew meant “go with the flow.”
    Maggie slapped her hand into Tru’s and shot to her feet. She had a very bad feeling about this . . . very bad indeed.
    A few minutes later, tottering back across the rocky parking lot with the camera crew trailing, she gripped Tru’s hand and her skirt as her hair whipped across her face. She was certain that no one on the face of the earth had ever looked more unprofessional.
    “Crimson is my horse’s name. He’s a great horse,” Tru said as they rounded the end of the trailer. “Don’t run off. I’ll unload him.”
    “Unload him?” Maggie laughed nervously. Running off was the best idea she’d heard all day. “But, y-you don’t need to do that.”
    “Sure I do.” Tru already had the trailer gate open and was stepping inside.
    Maggie watched in disbelief. This interview had gone to the birds—or horse. Tru untied the powerful-looking animal and led him out into the parking lot. Maggie’s insides quaked like an earthquake. She had never been good with animals. Small or large. The instant the horse emerged from the trailer, it spotted her and yanked hard at its rope with a loud nicker.
    Maggie jumped back—too quickly—her blasted high heels wobbled, and that was all it took. She fell back and hit the ground like a cow crashing on an ice rink.
    It was pathetic, painful in more ways than one, and a show of her complete klutziness.
    Alarm rang through her as her gaze flitted to the wide-eyed cowboy, then shot to the camera.
    It was pointing straight at her.

3
    Tru headed back to the ranch after the interview. His conscience stung with regret for the way it had ended. He still couldn’t believe Maggie had fallen like that. She’d told him she’d never been around horses, but he hadn’t expected her to be that afraid. She had vehemently denied any fear, but nothing else explained the way she’d jumped back at the jerk of Crimson’s head. That fear and those red heels had been hard on her pride, not to mention her backside. She was tough, though, no tears.
    Only steam pouring from her ears as she’d glared fire and brimstone up at him.
    Her quick recovery and the way she’d joked on-camera about her clumsiness had saved the interview from going south like a runaway bronc.
    But her anger at him became evident when the camera stopped rolling and she tossed those shoes off and stalked barefoot across the rough rock to her car. That had to have bruised the bottoms of her feet, but she was obviously too angry to notice, and that made him feel more of a jerk than he already did.
    He’d deserved it. He’d taken over that interview and left her no alternative but to go along with him.
    But what could he do now?
    He drove through the gate of the Four of Hearts and was still trying to find a solution as he drove past his Pops’s house, then the barn, and stopped in front of his place. A long, stretched-out single-story house with a low-slung roof and a wide porch in the back. Growing up, this had been the foreman’s house. Nothing fancy, but it suited Tru just fine.
    One day, if he married, he’d build something bigger, something more suited to a woman, but there was