Betting on Hope Read Online Free PDF Page B

a big “if” on the end of that thought. An “if” he was hoping to find an answer to in a couple of weeks after he heard from his oncologist. But right now, he had a ranch to run and a reputation to build for him and his horse program. A program he planned would last long after this time spent competing for championships that would keep sponsors knocking at his door and paychecks coming in.
    He was on the road a lot, and he’d seen what that kind of life did to many families. And he’d been thinking about family a whole lot lately. Not that he could do anything about it right now with all these responsibilities to the ranch and his sponsors.
    For now, his Pops’s ranch being safe from foreclosure or takeover was priority.
    “How’d it go?” Bo, his little brother by a year, asked, leading a bay horse out of the barn.
    Tru closed the door of his truck and met him at the round pen. “It was interesting.”
    Bo shot him an appraising look. “Not the answer I was expecting. You hate interviews.”
    “Still do, but—” Maggie holding her skirt in a tornado of wind, her blonde hair and interview pages whirling about her. She’d looked about as put out when he’d driven up as anyone could have been staggering about in those red high heels. He smiled thinking of that first sight. Those fancy shoes were more worthless on that chunky white rock than a pair of spurs without boots. Though he had to admit her legs looked amazing in them.
    “But what?”
    Tru scrubbed his jaw. “My interviewer wasn’t a reporter. She got roped in to doing it when the real reporter called in sick. She was different.”
    “How so?”
    “I have to admit it was the first interview I actually enjoyed.” He told Bo what had happened and how she was a mess asking the questions until he got her riled up on camera and she started asking her own. Bo threw his head back and laughed when Tru told him about his stupid remarks. And her challenge. He didn’t say anything about her falling. The odds of the town not finding out after the local ladies told the tale were low, but it wouldn’t be because he repeated it. He knew the station would delete that portion from the interview, along with much more—like him taking over asking the questions. They’d salvage what they could and hope for the best.
    “A bet? Not your smartest move ever,” Bo said, having stopped grinning the instant Tru mentioned it.
    “Don’t I know it. You should have seen her, though. She was flustered so much I felt bad for her. And then she tossed out that ‘you wanna bet’ line and I just reacted.”
    “I can already see the camera crews following y’all around,” Bo teased.
    Tru’s smile turned into a scowl. “That’s not happening. They’ll cut all of that. The station won’t want their reporter falling apart on camera, and that was exactly how Maggie looked.”
    “Maggie, huh? Did you get her number?”
    “You don’t let up, do you? She lives in Houston. And she’s a writer for some column in the Tribune . I did not get her number. Despite not being a TV reporter, she’s still in the journalism profession.”
    Bo’s left brow cocked. “A column, huh? Hey, maybe she’d write a column on you, big brother. Make you famous again.”
    “Funny.” Tru knew his brother was ribbing him about his stupid move of the year, dating a high-strung actress that he’d met at a charity fund-raiser of one of his sponsors. He’d ended up on the tabloids more times than he’d wanted, and the last time it had been a big mess. One that he could only blame on himself. What had he expected from a media-hungry starlet?
    It had ended badly when he’d tried to end the relationship, taught him a big lesson, and made him more grateful for his home than ever. He was glad to be back where he belonged for a little while; here on his ranch, on the soft disked earth of his arena with his horses.
    He didn’t make mistakes with horses.
    That wasn’t always the case with