by Laura Moore
“That would be Sandy Riley.”
Jade nodded. “I think that’s her name. Apparently her obstetrician ordered bed rest for her until she delivers. Guerra asked if I’d take her class for the fall semester. Cool, huh?”
“Fantastic. I hope Sandy’s okay,” Jordan said. “I’ll write her a note.”
“Do you know who’s going to be in your class? We might know some of the kids,” Margot asked.
“No, not yet. But I have a meeting with Guerra tomorrow. I guess he’ll give me the roster and the kids’ files then. I hope I get some horsey kids, so I can recruit them for my riding program.”
Margot paused in the midst of stacking the now-empty plates. “You sure it won’t be too much, teaching school and giving riding lessons in addition to your own training and riding? You won’t have a moment to yourself.”
“This from the woman who’s juggling two demanding careers, raising two kids, and evidently still has enough energy to keep her husband looking real happy?”
“But, Jade—”
“And don’t you start in on me either, Jordan,” Jade warned. “You’re as much of an overachiever as Margot. Your interior-design company is going gangbusters, you help out at Gage and Associates, you’ve got four—count ’em—four kids, serve on countless committees, and you’re still at the barns every day, helping Ned with the foals and riding whoever needs exercising.”
“But—” Jordan tried again.
“But what? I’m supposed to be a slacker-girl and sit around playing video games and updating my Facebook status or maxing out my credit card at the mall after I’ve finished working with the horses Travis and Ned assign me?”
“No, but teaching school is exhausting, and then there’s all the prep work that goes into it—”
“Reality check, sis. It’s second grade I’m teaching. I think I can handle the rigors of the curriculum.”
“You can’t expect modesty from the girl who’s never met a test she didn’t ace,” Miriam said, laughing.
Jade grinned at her friend. “I’m trying not to make you all feel bad. I know how tricky those multiplication tables can be.”
“It’s the sevens that always stumped me,” Andy said.
“I’ll lend Miriam some flash cards you can practice with,” Jade replied with a wink. “As for lesson planning and grading, I figure I’ll do them at night. Might have to sacrifice watching American Idol, but that’s getting old anyway. And I’m only going to offer riding lessons three days a week in the beginning—think I’ll be able to fill the classes, Ned?”
“Write up a flyer and I’ll drop it off at Steadman’s tomorrow—I need to pick up some bell boots for Night Watch. They can stick it in their binder. Adam and Sara Steadman think the world of you. You can be sure they’ll spread the word that you’re offering lessons.”
“Thanks, Ned, I’ll write one up tonight.” Returning her attention to her sisters, she said, “It’ll be fun teaching riding. It’s important to instill good riding fundamentals early on.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Ned chimed in. “Some of the kids entering horse shows have no business sitting in the saddle. Sloppy riding at such a young age becomes a real hard habit to break. Who better to teach what hunt seat equitation’s about than Miss Jade? After all, she has plenty of experience. I still remember her coaching Kate over her first crossbar jump.”
“And have you guys considered that when these kids get older, their parents are going to be buying them horses? Where do you suppose they’ll shop for that first gorgeous hunter?” Jade asked with an arch of her brows.
“Are you thinking Rosewood Farm?” Andy asked with a grin.
“Excellent deduction, Andy.”
Travis laughed. “I gotta say, Jade’s plan is scarily brilliant. Kind of like the kid herself.”
Jade blew him a kiss. “Have I told you lately how much you rock as a bro-in-law?”
“Hold it right there,” Owen said. “I refuse to be cast as the bro-in-law who does not rock. It’s time we show Jade her graduation present.”
“You mean you’ve finished the pony barn?” she asked. “I was so hungry—I decided I needed my sleep more than breakfast at the hotel—that I drove straight up to the house. This I gotta check out.” Brimming with excitement, she jumped up from the table.
Ned, who was carrying his namesake, stood up and shifted the toddler to his chino-covered hip. “It’s awful good to have you back, Miss Jade.” His pale-blue eyes twinkled beneath his shaggy silver brows.
“Isn’t it, though?”
As the other adults hastily downed the last dregs of coffee and rose to their feet, Jade cupped her hands and gave a shout to her four older nieces and nephew gamboling on the lawn. “Come on, kids. We’re going to inspect the new barn. Here, Georgie, you can ride piggyback and tell me everything Mommy’s been teaching you on Doc Holliday.”
Owen had pulled off the new construction beautifully, Jade thought. Nestled between the main barn and the broodmares’s barn, and painted the same soft weathered white with a matching gray roof and squared cupola, the pony barn blended seamlessly.
While she drank in the details of the barn, her heart did funny things inside her chest. Seeing the first part of her idea for a riding program at Rosewood Farm become a physical reality meant so much, not simply because her dream was being realized but because it represented the wholehearted support of her family. When she’d proposed the idea of opening the farm to teach the local kids to ride, she hadn’t expected their enthusiastic response. As one, they’d urged her to go for it. And now they’d done even more.
They’d gone and built a barn for her. Her very own barn.
She swallowed to make sure her voice sounded normal. “It looks perfect, Owen. Even better, it looks like it’s always been here. Dad would be happy.”
“Yup. RJ would be real pleased. Your mom too,” Ned added. “She was always proud of your riding, Miss Jade.”
Bless Ned for saying that. Most likely Ned would have choked on the words if he’d ever read a page from her mother’s diary. Thank God Margot and Jordan had never shown it to him, for then he’d know what her mom had really thought about her—Stop it. Do not go there, she counseled herself. Don’t let her spoil this moment for you.
With a bright smile, she turned to Owen. “You most definitely rock with the best of all brothers-in-law. The barn’s great, just fantastic. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, kid.” Owen smiled. He had a killer smile. It was the thing she’d first liked about him. That he was perceptive enough to recognize that Jordan was an amazing woman was the second.
“Don’t rush your fences, Jade,” Travis warned. “You can’t pronounce Owen’s latest equine accommodation fantastic until you’ve inspected it from bottom to top—though it is,” he added with a grin.
“Well, then,” she said, hitching Georgie higher up on her back. “I want the deluxe tour.”
“We put in six box stalls, as requested.”
“So now there’ll be room for Doc and Archer to come live here with the other ponies, right, Aunt Jade?” Max, her eldest nephew, was marching alongside her like an army soldier. She was pretty sure his footsteps were ringing louder than anyone else’s.
“Right, Max, because you and Kate and Olivia are being really terrific about letting me use Doc and Archer when I teach the other kids.”
“And we’re gonna get to ride the other ponies too,” Olivia piped up.
“That’s a fact. I’ll need a lot of help exercising them, and you guys are already good riders.”
“Fortunately we have a steady supply of child labor here,” Margot said wryly.
The group had come to a stop in the center of the immaculate barn, and Jade looked about her. “Nice. Very nice.”
Owen smiled. “Travis, Ned, and I decided on standard-size box stalls in case you ever want to put horses in here. But I went for the same sliding-door design that we have at Hawk Hill.” Owen and Jordan used their barn
and fields to house Rosewood’s retired broodmares. “I figured sliding doors would be easier to negotiate when the kids are leading the ponies in and out of the stalls. I realize it’s a different design than Rosewood’s other barns—”
“But it works better with a barn this size.” She glanced around, taking in the pristine concrete floor, the pine-wood box stalls gleaming gold in the daylight. It looked wonderful and was going to look even more wonderful when she bought four barn mates for Doc Holliday and Archer. She could already imagine the space filled with kids learning how to pick hooves and pull manes and use a currycomb. She nodded happily. “This is perfect. Really. Thanks, guys.”
“The tack room’s down here, opposite the club room.”
She turned to stare at Margot. “Club room?” she asked blankly.
“That’s Jordan’s and my contribution to the barn. We thought the kids would need a place to sit and stow their school stuff without it cluttering up the aisles.”
Margot and Jordan led the way down the wide aisle. Pushing open a door, Margot waved Jade inside a room that was roughly the size of two box stalls. A pair of windows gave the room a bright, airy feel. On the far wall stood a line of cubbies with hooks for coats and backpacks, and in the center of the room two sofas faced each other, with armchairs at either end.
“Swank” was all she could say as she looked about her. Her brows came together in a slight frown. The club room was great, but it bothered her to think of her sisters spending extra money when they’d done so much for her already. After giving them each a fierce hug of thanks, she said, “I’ll reimburse you for the furniture.”
Jordan shot that idea down quickly. “Don’t be silly. Everything you see here is from the third floor of the big house. Remember my telling you that I was redecorating this spring? Margot and Travis wanted to make the third floor over for guests—you know how much Damien Barnes and Charlie Ayer like to come and stay. It needed a whole new look.”
“Those sofas were the ones you had when you were living with the kids up there?” Jade asked.
Jordan nodded. “I simply got new slipcovers for them and the chairs. On sale. The fabric’s washable, by the way. The rug’s price was slashed too.”
“And Doug and Jesse put up the cubbies and the tack-room equipment gratis. Their graduation present to you,” Owen added.
Doug and Jesse were two of the builders who worked for Owen and his architectural firm, Gage & Associates. They’d helped Owen restore Hawk Hill, the house next door, where he and Jordan and the kids now lived. With Owen’s attention to the architectural details, Jordan’s eye for design, and Jesse and Doug’s exquisite craftsmanship, Hawk Hill was now as stunning as Rosewood. Its renovation had given Owen a ton of business in the area.
“That’s so sweet of them,” she said. “I’ll drop by whatever site they’re working at tomorrow and thank them.”
“Well, that’s easily done, as tomorrow they’ll be about a couple thousand feet away.” Owen smiled.
“Doing repairs on the house, huh? I’ll make a Braverman’s run for them. Pastrami with the works still Doug and Jesse’s favorite?”
“Yes, but, Jade?” Jordan said.
Jade wondered why Owen’s smile seemed to be contagious. Everyone was grinning. “Uh-huh?”
“Owen’s present? There’s more.”
“More?” she repeated blankly.
“Yeah, more! It’s a big surprise, Aunt Jade!” Olivia hollered, with Georgie and Kate chiming in gleefully, grins stretching their little faces. All of a sudden Jade realized that all the kids—the ones who were verbal, that is—had been unusually quiet throughout the tour of the pony barn. Their tongues probably all bore teeth marks from biting back whatever thrilling surprise lay in wait for her.
“Personally, I don’t know how you could top a six-stall pony barn, but I guess I’m gonna find out.”
JADE GOT her answer. They’d built her a house—or rebuilt it, to be precise. She hardly recognized Bramble Cottage. Originally, the cottage had been used to house Rosewood Farm’s workers, but for years it had sat vacant, as Tito and Felix, Rosewood’s grooms, both had families too large for the two-bedroom house. Ned had his own cottage, Thistle Cottage, and before Travis and Margot married, Travis had lived in the apartment over the main barn—where Andy and Miriam now lived.
“This is for me?”
“Yes,” Jordan answered her. “Isn’t it cute?”
Jordan was right. The cottage was cute. Just by looking at its exterior, Jade could tell that Owen must have had fun with the project. He’d altered the façade, creating a porch screened by columns, just like at the main house, and enlarged the windows to create an airier look.
“Wait until you step inside. Owen had a blast going through John Butler’s pattern book when he updated the interior,” Jordan said, her voice filled with pride and love.
“And guess what, Aunt Jade?” Kate said. “Mommy and I picked out the colors for the walls.”
“Me too! I helped.” Unable to contain her excitement, Olivia was jumping up and down as though on an invisible pogo stick.
“Then they’ll be the colors I like best, won’t they? This is amazing, guys. Thank you.” Though Jade was usually able to crack wise with the best of them, right now all she could think of was how incredibly lucky she was to have a family like this. They’d done so much for her, supporting her every minute of the day since Mom and Dad died, and for far too long she’d returned the favor by being hell on wheels.
Owen’s gaze scanned the little white house. “It’s not quite finished yet,” he warned. “Doug and Jesse still have to sand and finish the floors and perform a few final tweaks and touch-ups. But everything should be move-in ready by the end of the week. Do you want to see the inside now, or wait?”
“Most definitely now.”
The lot of them filed in and gave Jade the tour of the cottage. Walking through the rooms, she reveled in the collective chatter as they discussed what she would need to put where: a sofa, some chairs, a TV, a pretty round table where she could eat and do her grading work, some patterned curtains—but not ones that were too girlie—and a really comfortable bed. They knew her so well.…
Damn, she loved these guys. Telling herself to get a grip before she embarrassed them all by blubbering, Jade directed an accusing finger at her sisters and brothers-in-law. “I detect a nefarious plot here. You remodeled Bramble Cottage because you want to get rid of me. At the very least make me learn how to cook.”
Margot gave a dramatic roll of her eyes. “You, Jade, are suffering from paranoid delusions. Travis, please tell her how many tears I wept at the prospect of giving up 24/7 entertainment for Georgie and Will.”
“Oceans. Margot was practically in mourning,” Travis said.
“You’ve got Owen and Travis to thank for your new digs. They thought you might like to have a place where you could enjoy some privacy when you wanted it, rather than having your bedroom door busted down by the likes of Neddy or Will.”
A graphic image of what she’d been up to last night flashed in Jade’s mind. The last thing she wanted was for a G-rated audience to walk in on that kind of show. Although neither one-night stands nor sexual encounters of any kind were on her agenda, she did intend to line up a private investigator to find out who her mother’s lover had been. That particular activity had to remain just as private, hidden not only from the little nippers scampering in and out of her quarters but from her sisters as well. They wouldn’t understand her need to dig up old painful memories, and she wasn’t sure she could explain it to them convincingly. So, yeah, it would be good to research investigators here at the cottage, where awkward interruptions could be kept to a minimum.
Jordan’s voice brought Jade back to the immediate conversation. “Naturally I’m all for you learning how to boil water, Jade, but I’m hoping you’ll also be coming to Hawk Hill for dinner several times a week. You could come tonight. I baked brownies.” Her smile was accompanied by a misc
hievous wink as Margot gave a cry of outrage.
“That is so sneaky and underhanded of you, Jordan!”
Unfazed, Jordan merely shrugged. “Jade’s a free agent; she’s going to go where the deal is sweeter.”
“Sweet being the operative word,” Margot huffed. “Well, I’ll just have to ask Ellie to make her fried chicken for tomorrow night, won’t I?”
Jordan’s eyes narrowed at Margot’s upping of the ante.
“Wow. Ellie’s fried chicken. I’ve forgotten what that tastes like. I think I dream of it sometimes though,” Travis said, his mouth lifting in a crooked smile.
“So now do you see how hard it was to get your sisters to agree to renovating the cottage?” Owen asked.
Jade grinned. “Yeah. So, to be clear: What are you two expecting in return for this shameless and blatant bribery?”
“Babysitting,” Margot and Jordan pronounced in unison.
“For these monsters?” She summoned her darkest scowl at the kids, who’d decided to hold a one-legged race across the empty living space. Neddy and Will had joined in, tottering and crawling energetically across the drop cloth and, when that grew old, rolling about and laughing like the goofballs they were. As for the others, it was looking as if Georgie might win the race over her older cousins. While Georgie had Travis’s dramatic dark looks, she took after Margot in a big way: She liked to win. “You guys drive a hard bargain.”
“Think of it in terms of doing a good deed for bros-in-law who rock, kid,” Owen suggested.
Jade pretended to consider. “Okay, if you put it that way. I guess I can give up a couple of nights now and again.”
From the four matching grins, one would think she’d just handed her sisters and their husbands the moon.
