His Rodeo Sweetheart

by Pamela Britton

  Her face heated.

  She hoped Adam didn’t notice. Her son had the eyes of an eagle, and all she needed was for him to notice her reaction to Ethan. For such a sick little boy, he seemed obsessed with the idea of her dating someone.

  “I’m not sure a ride is a good idea.”

  “Mo-om,” he repeated.

  “You’re just getting over a bad flu bug. I don’t think you should exert yourself.”

  “That’s the point, Mom.” He stared up at her as if she was an idiot. “The horse does all the work.”

  Yup. Definitely on the road to recovery. In a lot of ways. He’d been such a little boy when he’d been diagnosed with leukemia. For the first time she saw a glimpse of the young man he would become.

  “How about we play it by ear?”

  But she should have known she was fighting a losing battle. Her son was persistent, and he remained blissfully unaware of her desire to avoid Ethan. The trouble with that resolve, however, was the shame she felt every time she knew Ethan was outside working or feeding or helping with her dogs. She’d been communicating with him through her brother, and every time she did, her shame only grew. The man had opened up to her, told her of his fears and his anxiety; he’d kissed her after, and she’d kissed him right back. Now all she did was hide in her house and it really was ridiculous.

  “Damn it,” she muttered. She needed to stop acting like a hermit. As Chance had said, she needed to go out and have fun, not that riding was her idea of fun, but it would be good to get out.

  She just wished it wasn’t with Ethan.

  Chapter Ten

  She didn’t have horses of her own, Ethan learned. The family kept all the livestock at the main ranch. So he waited like a kid on his first day of school. Impatient. Excited. Anxious.

  Not the same type of anxiety as before.

  He wasn’t quite himself yet, not by a long shot. He still had the dreams—those terrible dreams—but staying at Misfit Farms, throwing himself into the care of their animals, and then during this past week even riding for the first time in ages, had helped. He still had the dreams about Trevor, but he doubted he’d ever get over the tragic loss of his friend. And he still had moments where it was all he could do to hang on, but things were better. Day by day. That was how he lived.

  And today he’d get to see Claire.

  He knew she’d been avoiding him. That was okay. She would learn that he felt just as bad about their kiss as she likely did. He didn’t have a home, a job—well, not a permanent one, anyway—and he still had some serious issues to deal with. He had no business dragging a woman into his mess of a life. No business at all. Especially when that woman had her own problems to deal with.

  “Dr. McCall!”

  He turned away from the horse he was in the midst of grooming and smiled. If there was one bright spot to his days, it was Adam. The boy had recovered so quickly it seemed almost like a miracle, but as he glanced past him to his mother, he still saw concern in her eyes.

  “Well, look at you.” He smiled again at the little boy running down the middle of the barn aisle. “No more zombie-pale skin and bags under your eyes.”

  The boy’s feet sent up a cloud of dust as he came to a halt. He had a grin about as wide as the Mississippi. “I haven’t had a fever in days.”

  He said it as if days were a month and it made Ethan shake his head. Nothing like the resilience of youth. Sometimes he wished he was back on his parents’ ranch, back before they’d sold out and gone to work for one of the big operations in Montana.

  “You still need to take it easy.” He would have ruffled the kid’s hair except he wore his usual baseball cap, this one with the initials of a popular comic book series, his hair having really grown since he’d first met him. He had way more than peach fuzz now. “You don’t want to relapse.”

  Adam shook his head. “Doctor said I was A-okay. Had a test yesterday and he said my blood looked good.”

  Claire had walked up behind Adam, her long black hair reaching past her midriff. She wouldn’t look at him, and so he had the perfect opportunity to study her. Still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, and not just because of her thick black hair and green eyes. No. It was more that there was a goodness to her, an edge of sadness that haunted her eyes and made her beauty the kind that seemed almost ethereal. Two hundred years ago the great masters would have clamored to paint such an enigmatic face. It was too bad her character had been formed by sadness.

  “Is that true? Did he pass a vet check?”

  It was a joke. A veterinary term that applied to animals, not little boys, and something he hoped would make her smile because he didn’t want to become just another problem to her. He wanted to help. Wanted her to know that whatever may have happened, they would always be friends.

  “He did.” She met his gaze, and he spotted something like relief. Relief that he hadn’t tried to swoop in and kiss her again? Or relief for her son? “Said so far so good.”

  Her underlying meaning that her son’s health might all change. And it might, but he didn’t like the way she focused on the negative. Life was too short for that. He’d learned the lesson all too well.

  “So you up for a ride?” he asked Ethan.

  “Yup.”

  “Let me go get your horse, then.”

  Colt had shown him the pony-sized quarter horse that served as Adam’s mount. It was the weekend, which meant Colt and Natalie were on the road, this time with some clients. They were all at a horse show. Natalie had joked that Colt looked like a fish out of water at the equestrian events in his cowboy boots and hat, but that secretly he loved all the attention.

  “Do you know where his pony is?” Claire asked.

  “Colt showed me.” He forced himself to hold her gaze. She returned his the same way. It was as if she faced off with him. As if she dared him to mention their kiss. He wouldn’t, though. He would act as if it hadn’t happened. That was what he silently told her. She seemed to understand, because she looked away and her whole body seemed to relax. Yup. Definitely relieved.

  “He told me you keep your own horse in the last stall on the left and that I’m not supposed to help you because you love saddling and grooming all on your own.”

  Claire whipped around to face him. Someone snorted. Adam, he realized, the child releasing something that could only be called a guffaw. He glanced back at Claire, who had an expression of disbelief mixed with amusement on her face.

  “That’s what he told you, huh?” she asked. For the first time she smiled, a big grin, one that caught him off guard. “What an ass.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “She hates horses,” Adam said with a hooting laugh. “That’s why she does dogs.”

  “Not true,” Claire quickly amended. “I like them just fine. They just don’t like me.”

  He stared at her, stunned. He would have thought she’d be as horse crazy as the rest of her family. Come to think of it, though, there were no horses on her property. Just dogs. And no pictures of horses. No horse tack. No cowboy boots. Nothing to indicate she carried the horse-crazy gene.

  “Then why did your brother insist I take you for a ride?”

  “Because he knows I won’t let Adam go on a trail ride without me.”

  “She’s a control freak,” Adam said.

  “Hey.” She frowned down at her son.

  “It’s true. Even Uncle Colt says so.” The boy shook his head at the ridiculousness of it all, as if he were the adult and his mother the child.

  “I’m only allowed to ride in the arena if she’s not around. If she’s here, I can ride outside the arena, but only down the road and back. I can’t go out on trails all by myself.” He ticked the rules he had to follow off with his fingers. “Well, I can go if Uncle Colt takes me, but she’s a stress mess
that whole time and it kind of ruins the fun of things, knowing she’s back at the ranch pacing back and forth.”

  “I do not pace.”

  “You do, too.”

  “And you make me sound like a freak.”

  “You are about horses, Mom.”

  Ethan watched the play of emotions across her face. It fascinated him. No, she fascinated him, because he suspected there was more to the story of why she didn’t like horses than she let on.

  “I just prefer to keep an eye on you,” she said to her son.

  “And I don’t blame her.” He tapped the bill of Adam’s baseball cap. “Go get your pony.”

  The kid shot off. That left them alone for the first time since Adam had been sick, and he could tell it instantly made her uncomfortable.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to jump you.”

  Her gaze shot to his. “Excuse me?”

  “You look like a cat in a bathtub.”

  She tipped her chin up. “That’s because I’m about to do something I don’t like.”

  “It’s because I kissed you.” He had no idea why he pushed the matter, especially when he’d vowed to put the incident behind him. But push her he did, for some reason enjoying the way her face blazed with color and the way her jaw ticked in... Was it annoyance? Or maybe it was embarrassment. He couldn’t tell.

  “What horse did Colt say I should ride?”

  And now she was trying to change the subject.

  “I’m assuming the horse in the last stall on the left, like he said.”

  She nodded and turned in that direction. He stepped in front of her. She glanced up, green eyes wide, and he told himself to leave the matter alone. To reassure her that he wasn’t going to try to kiss her again. Tell her that he knew it’d been a mistake, a moment of weakness, for both of them.

  Instead he found himself saying, “Don’t forget. You were the one who started it when you touched me out by the creek.”

  And it was all there in her eyes. Dismay. Shame. Anger. Pride. “That won’t happen again.” She slipped past him without a backward glance.

  “No?” he teased, though for the life of him he didn’t know why.

  Leave her alone, a voice warned. You’re pushing her.

  She swung back around to face him. “No.” She lifted her chin. “It won’t.”

  * * *

  SHE GRUMBLED UNDER her breath the whole time she saddled up Blue inside the barn, not just because of Ethan’s sudden alpha-male attitude, but because she truly didn’t want to ride.

  You’re doing this for Adam.

  That’s what she needed to focus on. Her son and the happiness that shone from his eyes whenever he was near a horse. Not the ridiculous man who teased her about something she had deemed a mistake and that she tried desperately to put from her mind.

  “You ready?”

  She turned to face him. And there she went again, and it really drove her nuts, too. Every time she saw him she couldn’t help but think, oh, my. She’d had the same thought when she spotted him outside the barn, the horse he’d been grooming like the backdrop of a photo shoot, one with the caption, “Real men wear jeans,” or something like that. He wore a black cowboy hat, one that hung low on his forehead, the brim of it curved in such a way that it made the line of his jaw seem more square.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.” She tried to smile, failed and pretended a sudden interest in Blue’s bridle.

  “Come on.” He smiled. “It’s time to quit stalling.”

  What? She wasn’t stalling. She would have told him that very thing except he’d already walked back toward the front of the barn. Outside, her son held the reins to his bay horse, his weight shifting from foot to foot, as if he had to go to the bathroom, but she knew Adam was merely anxious to leave.

  “Mo-om.”

  “Sorry.” She hadn’t even noticed they were done tacking up. If she had, she would have brought her own horse outside instead of dillydallying inside.

  Stalling.

  Well, okay. Yes. Stalling.

  She tugged Blue forward, temporarily blinded when she joined them. It was one of those days where the sky seemed enhanced by a photo filter, the kind that made everything more vivid: the blue of the sky, the orange of the wild poppies in the field out behind Colt and Natalie’s house. The green of the trees off in the distance. Her own small house had been built against one of the low hills that dotted the landscape, but Colt’s was out in the open. Her dad claimed that had been done on purpose. His great-grandfather had wanted to be able to keep an eye on his stock at all times and so he’d plopped down a homestead in the middle of nowhere. The home she lived in had been built for the ranch foreman. It was far smaller than Colt’s, but that was okay. She didn’t need two stories and a huge attic. She much preferred her cozy cottage.

  “You going to get on?”

  She realized she’d been standing there, staring at Colt’s big white ranch house. She shook her head to clear it, and when that didn’t work, took a deep breath and faced the saddle.

  Here we go.

  It’d been so long, but it was impossible to forget how to mount a horse. Once you mastered the skill it was like riding a bike. Her foot slid easily into the leather stirrup. Her hands instantly found the reins. She pulled herself up and over with an ease that was both familiar and troubling.

  Troubling?

  Yes, troubling, because it brought back memories, none of them good.

  “Let’s go.” Adam’s excited voice could be heard across the plains. He clearly couldn’t wait to get out into the open, because he made a beeline to the gate to the right of her brother’s house. He had leaned over and worked the metal bar free before she could tell him to wait. She knew what would happen after Adam got through that gate. Sure enough, he pointed his pony toward the hills.

  “Adam.”

  “Be right back.”

  “You’re still not well—”

  He galloped off.

  “Adam!”

  “Let him go.”

  She turned in her saddle to face him. “He’s just getting over a bad flu.”

  “And he’s fine now.”

  And there, right there, was the problem with ever getting involved with him. He didn’t understand. Adam would never be “fine.” Not for a lot of years. Though his blood tests showed they were clear of the cancer for now, that was just it. For now. There would be monthly monitoring. Then bimonthly. Then every six months. And at any moment—boom—they could be back where they started. She would worry about her son’s health until the day she died. She wouldn’t wish that kind of worry and fear on her worst enemy, much less someone like Ethan with his own cross to bear.

  “He’s not as strong as he once was.”

  “He will be if you let him spread his wings a little.”

  Good Lord, he sounded like her brother, right down to the no-nonsense tone. “It’s not that simple.”

  “No,” he surprised her by saying. “It probably isn’t, but if there’s one thing Trevor’s death has taught me it’s that bad shit happens.”

  She almost laughed because she’d learned the lesson early in life. That was what her whole life had been like. One series of bad things after another, and the thought cracked open the door to a memory of watching Marcus during his final days. Of watching him struggle to hang on. He’d been exposed to something over there, a bad batch of vaccine that had wrecked his immune system in the same way cancer did. They tried everything, but nothing had been able to stop the progression of the disease until just a shell of Marcus remained. She’d held his hand, begging him to stay, a part of her wanting him to let go, too, because there was nothing on this Earth worse than watching a loved one die.

  Nothing.

  Adam whooped, bringing
her back from her thoughts.

  “You look upset.”

  She moved her horse through the gate she hadn’t even realized he held open.

  “I just don’t like riding much.”

  He rode one of her other brother’s horses, Frosty, an old rope horse that didn’t get much use while Chance was in the military. “That surprises me, having grown up on a ranch.” He patted Frosty’s gray neck when the horse grew antsy about being left behind.

  “Why?” she asked, forcing the horrible memories away. Marcus was gone. Remembering those final days did nothing but bring her down, so she took a deep breath, pulling her horse to a stop and waiting for him to close the metal gate held up by matching posts. “Just because a farmer grows corn doesn’t mean he likes to eat it.”

  He smiled briefly as Frosty settled down. “Can’t argue that.”

  She hoped he would leave the matter alone. After he closed the gate and joined her, they rode along in silence for a moment and the fresh air did her good. This was the here. This was the now. She needed to look toward her future.

  “Adam told me your dad ruined riding horses for you.”

  She glanced up at him and she had to marvel. Last month he’d been far away, on another continent, and now here he sat atop a horse looking as if he’d been riding Frosty his entire life. One day soon her brother Chance would be doing the same thing.

  “My son thinks he knows a lot of things, but he really doesn’t.” She forced herself to stare between her horse’s ears. “He likes to think he’s all grown-up, too.”

  “Maybe he is.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Not really. I mean, I know he’s only six, but you should let him have fun more often.”

  She wasn’t certain how they’d gone from her troubled past to her son again so quickly, but she found herself clutching the reins, Blue instantly reacting by tossing his head.

  “At least while he’s feeling up to it,” he added.

  She opened her mouth, prepared to tell him he was wrong. That it was her job to protect her son. But when she glanced ahead it was to note that Adam had stopped. He had turned back to face them, waved, and even as far away as he’d run, she could still see his smile. It blazed like the gleam of quartz.