The Cowboy Earns a Bride (Cowboys of Chance Creek Book 8) (15 page)

She took a sip of her orange juice. “Fred Warner was one of the judges. I met him in one of the practice sessions, where they tell you how the pageant will go—where to stand, and so on. He seemed ancient to me, but was probably only middle-aged. He was kind. Asked me if it was my first big pageant. Gave me some tips. He told jokes, too, and made me relax. I thought he was like any other adult I might meet—like one of my parents’ friends, or someone from church.” She swallowed hard. “But during the second practice session, he took me aside. He led me to a storeroom in the convention center where the pageant was being held. I’d seen one of the other girls come out of that room with him, so I believed him when he said he was just giving some of the better contestants some special tips.” She lowered her gaze. “You can imagine what happened next.”

“Oh, Mia.”

Mia pushed on. “It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. He got me in a tight clinch. His hands were everywhere—I hadn’t experienced that before; Mom kept me on a pretty tight leash up until that point. The worst was that I couldn’t get away—that he was stronger than me. I thought—I thought he’d…” She choked back a sob. “Finally, I bit him—hard. He was surprised and loosened his grip for a second. I got out of there. I ran to the washroom and cried and cried. One of the other girls found me and I made her go get my mom. I was so hysterical she had to take me home.”

Rose didn’t say a word, just waited for the rest of it. Mia was grateful for that. If she stopped now, she didn’t think she could go on. “She didn’t believe me. She thought I was exaggerating, or… I don’t know. She didn’t want to believe—I realize that now. She didn’t want to think she’d put me in danger. She made me go back the following day.”

“No!” Rose’s shocked exclamation made heads turn their way.

Mia lowered her voice. “She said I had to carry through with what I’d started. She said I had an obligation.”

“That’s insane.”

“No.” Mia shook her head tiredly. “That’s denial. It makes us do stupid things. I’ve forgiven my mom for it. She didn’t know what to do, so she pretended nothing happened at all. And I went back. I was shaking in my boots, but I did it. Mom walked with me to the dressing room where everyone was preparing for the pageant. When I went in you could have heard a pin drop. Then the other girls started whispering.”

Her hands were shaking as she lifted the juice to her lips again.

“Mom got me out of there, fast—I’ll give her that much. We drove home and I never entered another pageant again. We never spoke about it again, either.”

Rose was blinking back tears, but Mia found her own eyes strangely dry. She felt calm, too. Saying it out loud wasn’t as hard as she’d thought it would be.

“I’m so sorry, Mia. I know it was bad, but I’m so glad it wasn’t worse.”

“That’s the thing,” Mia said and her voice broke. “It was worse for someone else.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Warner raped one of the other girls. And he’s still on the circuit. I don’t know what to do.”

Rose’s eyes went wide. “You have to tell someone.”

Pain clogged Mia’s throat. There it was again—the need to haul herself before a crowd and expose her shame and humiliation. “I’m not sure I can.”

“I know you can,” Rose said. “Mia, you are one of the bravest women I know. You can do this.”

“Maybe.”

“If you need someone by your side, you know I’ll be there, right?”

“Yeah, I know that.” Rose had already stood by her when others hadn’t. “I’ll think about it, okay?”

“Okay.” Rose gave her hand a squeeze. “Now how about those invitations you told me about?”

“Take a look at this.” Mia pulled out her phone gratefully and showed Rose the website for a local printing company. “Here are a ton of stationary samples. If you go through and favorite some of them I’ll take a trip to the store and get real samples you can hold in your hand. I’ll drop them by later tonight.”

“Wow—that’s great service.”

“That’s the whole point of me being your wedding planner. I do the hard work. You get to relax and enjoy yourself.” She felt calmer now that they were on safer ground.

“You’re going to be a genius at this.” Rose settled down to choosing her stationary.

Mia let out a long breath. She could figure out what to do about Inez and Fred Warner another time. Right now it was her job to concentrate on Rose, and she turned to the task willingly.

“Is this seat taken?” Cab dropped onto the bench seat next to Rose without waiting for an answer.

“Are you going to help me pick out stationary?” Rose asked.

“Just here for some coffee, although I wouldn’t mind a couple shots of Jack Daniel’s while I’m at it.”

“Jack Daniel’s?” Rose checked her watch. “It’s barely eleven-thirty in the morning. Why would you want to get wasted?”

“Because I’ve been getting honked at, whistled at and laughed at everywhere I go today. And to top it off, Marge Ransom patted my ass.”

“Marge Ransom?” Rose cocked her head. “Isn’t she about eighty years old?”

“Maybe she thought it was your head,” Mia said.

Cab glared at her. “She read the sign.”

“What sign?”

“The one some jackass taped to the back of my cruiser.”

“Uh-oh,” Rose said. “What did it say?”

“
Honk if you think I’m sexy
. And it was duct-taped to my car. You try getting that off.”

“Honk if you think… Oh my God, was it Jamie?”

“Had to be. I’m telling you, he doesn’t take my godlike physique seriously.”

“Well, I take it seriously.” Rose pecked him on the cheek. “I take it very, very seriously.”

“You take it any way you can get it,” Cab growled, kissing her back, then seemed to remember they had company. “Sorry, Mia.”

“That’s okay. At least someone’s getting along.”

Cab focused on her. “Still on the outs with Luke? He cares for you a lot, you know.”

“So everyone tells me,” Mia said, gathering her things. “Too bad he doesn’t act like it when I’m around.”

As the days
passed, Luke’s mood dipped further. He could no longer pretend he would marry Mia the first week in March. Instead of making up with him, she threw herself into preparing for the opening of Fila’s Familia, and helping Rose put together her wedding to Cab.

That stung more than anything else. Whenever he ran into the sheriff, it was clear Cab was overjoyed to be with Rose, and anyone could see Rose adored him back. The couple obviously had a healthy sex life, too, if all their kissing and caressing was anything to go by. The sheriff was no ladies’ man and here he was getting lucky every night by the looks of things while Luke was stuck home alone. He was frustrated, irritable and downright mad at the way things had turned out. How was he supposed to fix things with Mia when she would never spend any time with him?

At least he knew where she was—at the restaurant with Camila and Fila most of the time now that Fila was back from her honeymoon and opening day was looming large. Luke made it a point to drop by every few days on one pretext or another, but while Mia was perfectly polite she always kept the counter between them. Luke was beginning to think he’d never get to touch her again, and he ached to touch her. One night with Mia was definitely not enough.

It had become clear to him, however, that his attraction to Mia had clouded his judgment. He’d been too busy missing her sexy, come-hither attire to stop and wonder why she’d changed her image and pulled away from him. After talking to Cab and Rose her intentions were more clear. While he liked Mia dressed up sexy, she probably attracted a lot of attention that wasn’t positive—like the unwanted attention she’d received at the beauty contest years ago, and Ellis Scranton’s, too.

She’d changed her look because she wanted a different kind of regard. She wanted respect. He could understand that. Too bad instead of showing her any he’d tried to undercut her self-confidence and belittled her dreams. He hadn’t been swift to correct his mistake either. Somehow the restaurant felt too public to have a heart to heart, and the Cruz ranch guesthouse tended to be full of Ethan and Autumn’s friends in the evenings. Mia wouldn’t invite him upstairs these days. His pride had kept him from making amends in front of an audience and with each passing day it became harder to admit he was wrong.

Today he meant to make amends for that. He touched the small package in his coat pocket as he drove the tractor he’d used to haul feed out to the cattle back to its shed. It contained two jeweled hairpins he’d bought for Mia. He hoped she’d use them for those new hairstyles of hers and understand he thought her new look was beautiful. He hoped she’d understand he wanted another chance. Without him having to say as much in words.

He parked the tractor, shut it off and hopped down.

“There you are.”

Luke nearly jumped out of his skin when his father moved into the shed. Now he was in for it. Holt had never kept his opinions bottled up this long. Luke could only imagine what he wanted to say.

“Let’s talk about your bank account.”

Bank account? Luke frowned. “What about it?’

“I see a fancy truck in your driveway. I hear that you purchased a ring that cost more than my house.”

“It didn’t cost more than your house, and Mia gave it back anyway.”

“Smart girl. But I have a feeling those aren’t your only outstanding expenses. I’ve heard about the way you’re throwing your money around.”

That damned truck salesman. Luke should have known better than to trade on his name to secure financing when he didn’t have the money in the bank for a real down payment. The man probably hinted about it to Holt down at Rafters—a watering hole favored by older cowboys who didn’t care for the loud music and crowds at the Dancing Boot. Holt wouldn’t have liked that.

“Well?”

“It’s under control.” Luke tried to push past Holt, but Holt grabbed his arm.

“Don’t get into debt. It ain’t worth it.”

Too late, Luke thought. “I said it’s under control.”

Holt stopped him again. “You’ve chosen a hard road, son. Don’t make it harder.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

His father hesitated, then shook his head. “No, I ain’t having that conversation. You know damned well what I mean. I will say this. That girl of yours is a fighter. Don’t underestimate her.”

Luke stilled. A fighter. What did Holt know about Mia? Something told Luke he wasn’t referencing Ellis, or the fact that she was about to be a single mother. He was talking about something else. “What do you know about beauty pageants?” he blurted out.

Holt turned away. “Pageants? What about them?”

“Something shady was going on—about seven years ago. Did you hear about that? About one of the judges?”

Luke thought his father wasn’t going to answer, he hesitated so long. “I did hear something about that. Something I didn’t like at all.”

“What did you hear?”

“Fred Warner. Biggest ass I ever met. Hung out at Rafters for a time, until the rest of us let him know he wasn’t welcome anymore.”

“Why? What did he do?”

“Ran off his mouth a lot when he’d had a few too many—which was all the time. Most of it was bullshit. Bragging. That kind of thing. This was different.”

Dread crept into Luke’s gut. He’d been tamping down a thought that kept creeping up—an idea of what might have happened to Mia. He didn’t think he could bear to hear it out loud. “Spill it.”

“Let’s just say he made it clear he sometimes used his status as a judge to get special treatment from the contestants. That’s how he put it—special treatment.” Holt’s expression was hard. “Said they were all too willing to give it to him, most of the time. Said when they weren’t he knew how to persuade them. That’s what got to me. He knew how to
persuade them
.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t understand it all at first. Thought it was ugly but didn’t realize how ugly. I didn’t have daughters—I didn’t know the first thing about pageants. I figured those girls he was talking about were twenty, twenty-one. Old enough to know better.” Luke heard the regret in his father’s voice. “Should have shot that man, that’s what we should have done.” He turned to Luke. Held his gaze. “Few weeks later a friend of mine was bragging about his girl—how she won a pageant. I was surprised. ‘But Inez is just a little thing,’ I said. My pal nodded.” Holt swallowed. “‘That’s right,’ he says. ‘Just turned fifteen and won regionals.’ I thought my ticker would give out right then and there when I put it together. Regionals. The pageant Warner was judging. Well.” He nodded. “I had a word with Warner. Should have had more than a word. Regret now that’s all I did.”

“What did Warner do?” Luke’s hands were icy cold and not just from the weather.

“Left town not long after. Moved west, I think.” He slid another look Luke’s way. “Your girl was in those pageants. Mia.”

“Yeah. Yeah, she was.”

“I just stopped
by to make sure you hadn’t changed your mind,” Inez said, leaning on the counter.

Mia wiped an imaginary spot with a rag, and couldn’t meet her eye. “I don’t think so. I’m sorry, Inez,” she rushed on when the other woman began to speak. “I know it’s the right thing to do. I know I should do it, but I don’t think I can. I’m not brave like you.”

“Sure you are.” Inez chuckled grimly. “It was your bravery in speaking out in the first place that’s stuck with me all these years. It’s what made me brave enough to finally speak up.”

Mia turned aside. “What if they don’t listen to us?”

“I think they will. If they don’t, at least we tried.”

“I don’t want to see him again.” She finally put her worst fear into words.

“I know.” Inez touched her arm. “The thing is, I think we might have to.”

Mia closed her eyes. She thought Inez would keep trying to convince her, but instead the other woman waited patiently. Mia thought again of all the girls who were in the pageants Warner was judging. She thought about him leading them into small rooms, backing them into corners, pawing them. Forcing himself on them.

Damn it, couldn’t she ever get away from the past?

No. Not until she faced it down.

“Okay,” she said reluctantly. “I’ll do it. I don’t want to, but I will.”