He raised a brow. "This stuff?"
"Natural horsemanship. I've watched a couple of videos on YouTube, but that's not really the same thing."
"I wouldn't call this natural horsemanship. This is what I like to call common sense horsemanship." Laughing, Finn shook his head and handed the camera back to her. Her talent was undeniable, and she was right—the photo was good. He could let her do her thing to get by if she let him do his thing to get by. "Alright."
"Alright what?"
"Alright, you can watch, take photos, whatever it is you want to do. But I need to focus on your horse while I'm working with him. I'm not interested in a deep, philosophical conversation about this."
Her little frown produced a tiny line between her brow and for a fleeting second, he thought he'd like to smooth it out with his lips. The thought surprised him as much as the thought about Dane, and was gone as quickly as it came. He cleared his throat, uncomfortable, as if she could read his mind. Keeping this kind of thought to himself was paramount to coming out on the other side of this business transaction alive.
"And I need you to trust I know what I'm doing. Whatever you see here is in the best interest of your horse. I'm not being 'mean'."
"Alright," she repeated his earlier word, shifting her ponytail off her neck and drawing his eyes to the silky-looking curve where her shoulder drew up into the delicate column of her throat. Damnit.
She needed to go. She'd taken enough photos for one morning, as far as he was concerned, and if she stayed any longer, his stony resolve not to become invested in anything but her horse was going to weaken. He pulled the horse's lead rope off the rail of the fence in front of her. When it wasn't being used for work, he kept the gelding out here to keep him from getting stocked up, but he had a full morning of work, so Encore was heading into the barn for a few hours.
"So we're done here," he prompted, then turned back to the horse, snapping the lead rope into his halter. He didn't turn around until he heard her scuffing away from the round pen. When he did, he watched her back as she headed to the heifer barn, his eyes drawn to her in a way he couldn't explain. It made him feel weak, and anxious. Distraction like this was dangerous, it made mistakes happen, people get hurt; and it was disrespectful to his wife. He couldn't afford it in his day to day life. He hadn't expected her to infiltrate his head, his blood, his bed. She would need to find someone else for her horse. He would have to send her away; find a way to make himself do it.
They weren't even close to done.
—SIX—
"Hey, that's Finn." Emma's voice behind her nearly made Lily jump out of her skin. She was zoomed in on a shot she'd taken that had originally had Encore in it to the left, but she was considering cropping him out altogether because Finn Baylor made such a nice picture, all long legs and cowboy cool. He was turned side on and had one thumb tucked in the belt loop of his jeans. Dust from the round pen's dry sand footing drifted across his boots from Encore's movement. The way the sun hit him hid his eyes behind the brim of his white cowboy hat, but his chiseled, stubbled jaw was visible. A pair of yellow doeskin gloves poked out of his back pocket. It was a good photo—a brilliant photo, maybe, and cropped in on Finn, it made a great portrait of the working cowboy of Colorado. And gave her flutters in her stomach despite herself. The minute Emma saw it, it suddenly felt more like voyeurism than art.
Clearing her throat, Lily resisted the urge to slam her Macbook shut, and tilted her head to look at her friend, who had braced her arms on the back of the couch.
"It is, indeed," she said. Emma rounded the end of the couch that separated the eat-in kitchen from the small living room where Lily's stuff was spread out, and flopped down beside her.
"I didn't mean to snoop, I swear. But Finnegan's never looked so good. I guess I've always just seen your promotional material for the bulls and broncs and never anything artistic."
"I don't really do artistic all that often." Lily shrugged, flicking through a couple of other photos in the set without completing the crop on the photo of Finn. "Hey, look at this one."
She clicked on another set of photos, taken later in the day, to one she'd taken of Tucker. The pup was on his back in an uncut row between the hay fields, long strands of grass in his mouth, and Lily had laid down on her stomach to get it. His large ears flopped upside down, all four paws sticking out at awkward angles, and it looked like he was smiling.
"Oh no way, when did you take that?"
"This morning." Lily smiled, thinking of their little adventure. The pup had bounded off like a gazelle, his head only visible as he took long jumps through the grass. "I'm sure Dane will kill me, but it made for a great series of photos."
"I love these. If Dane tries to give you trouble, send him to me."
"He's such a character. And so are these guys." Lily scrolled through a couple more photos, some of them artistic perspective shots of the weathered wood of the snake-rail fence lining one side of the Baylor ranch's driveway, until she got to one of Alamo and Blackjack with their heads hung over the rail of their little corral, all four ears perked forward. It had only taken her about fifty shots to get one where they were both looking at the camera with their ears forward. "They posed like this forever. I might have been making funny noises at them. For quite some time. And actually, I think it was Noah's truck coming in the drive that got me the money shot."
Emma squeezed against Lily's side to get a better view of the photos, and for what felt like the hundredth time, she was grateful for the opportunity her friends had given her to get out of her head and Denver for a while. It was a new world, and her relationship with her horse's trainer wasn't quite what she'd imagined, but she'd needed a break from the pity and fear and reminders of what had happened.
"You're already getting so many good shots. I don't think I've ever thought of Finn as much as a cowboy as I do now." Emma pointed at the screen to encourage Lily to flick back to the photo she'd been working on, and saw the whole shot with Encore in it, not the crop job she'd done before. She craned her neck to look at her friend and raised a brow.
"What?"
Emma narrowed her eyes and then shook her head, directing her eyes back to the screen. But it was too late, Lily could already see some kind of plan forming.
"Nothing, show me more."
Lily looked at her friend for a moment longer, and then turned back to the computer, but all she had were more photos of Finn with Encore, and Tucker, and the former felt personal. She flipped through a couple, showing one of Tucker bounding up the drive toward the ranch, his ears flopping in the wind with his mouth open, and then shrugged.
"I just did some scouting today, mostly—" Lily's phone buzzed on her hip and she frowned, tugging it out. The call display showed it was her mother and she let out a sigh, setting her computer on Emma's lap and holding up her finger. "Hang on. Hey mom."
"Lily Jacobs, are you alright?" Panic had lifted her mother's voice a couple of decibels.
Dropping her head back, Lily swallowed, waved to Emma and headed out the front door of the cabin. "Yes, mom, I'm fine. You know I'm fine, I sent you a text message yesterday when we got in."
"I know, I just…" Her mother trailed off. Julie Jacobs was an incurable worrier, and Lily loved her for her concern, but needed the space Three Rivers would afford her. Though she'd been existing independent of her mother for almost a decade by this point, the accident had caused Julie to revert straight back to mama bear. At first, it had been useful—she'd prod doctors for more information or work when they might have let something slide, but now it was overbearing. Now that her body was mostly healed, she needed time for her heart and her head to do so and her mother's incessant interjection into her life and negativity about Encore was not helping. "Is your horse better yet?"
Lily slumped onto the steps in front of the cabin. The daylight had stretched as far as it would go and it was nearing dinnertime. To her right, Alamo and Blackjack watched her with interested expressions; what she wo
uldn't have given to have had her camera with her. She sat with her feet on the next step and wrapped her free arm around her knees. Her mother had never understood the draw of horses, especially the draw of spending hours in the woods with nothing but a horse. But to Lily, it was the next best thing to being able to capture the perfect image with her camera. On a bad day, she could feel all the negativity draining out of her by her toes the minute her ass hit the saddle, and that might have been why things had escalated to the point of needing to escape Denver. At least here, they were close. In the backyard, in the barn. In Denver, it was a twenty minute drive to her boarding stable.
"The trainer started working with him, yes."
"And how are you? Feeling okay?"
"Yes, mom, I'm fine," Lily repeated. It had become something of a mantra over the last year. If she answered in any other way, her mother went on high alert, and that was not something she needed right now. Her mother would get in her car and roll in just as she was getting ready for bed, tutting and fussing and making Lily feel like she was ten years old all over again.
"When are you coming home?"
"I don't know for sure, mom. I'd like to stay and watch the work Finn is doing with Encore." Of course, Finn didn't want her to stay and watch the work he did with the horse. "I'd like to be here when he makes the breakthrough."
"I don't know why you—"
"Mom."
Julie sighed on the other end of the line. Lily knew what would have come next because she'd heard it a dozen times. I don't know why you keep trying. I don't know why this is so important to you. He's just a horse.
But he wasn't just a horse. Over the last year, he'd become something of a symbol of the normalcy of her life. If he thrived, so would she. Leaving him with the chaos he experienced now meant she never got any closure.
"I know, honey, I just… I miss you."
Lily sighed. When her parents split up two years ago for her father to upgrade to a younger, prettier wife, she'd become her mother's crutch. She'd known coming to Three Rivers would be hard on Julie, but the last year had taught her that sometimes, to take care of those you care about, you have to take care of yourself first. And besides, her father had been the motivation behind her vow to restore Encore to his former, confident, reliable self. She couldn't justify throwing him away after their years of partnership just because he wasn't what she wanted him to be anymore.
"I know, mama. Maybe once we've made some progress, you can come out and visit for the day."
"Oh, I don't know." There it was—her mother's kindness and concern extended only as far as her daughter, without recognizing the horse was a key factor in it. "We'll talk about it later."
"Right. Later." Emma poked her head out the door, raising a brow as if to ask if everything was okay and Lily nodded, shooing the girl back inside. "Anyways, Emma's fixing to get dinner ready, so I need to give her a hand."
"Okay, Lily." Her mother hesitated a moment and she heard a long breath on the line. She was trying, Lily knew it, but her mother hadn't yet learned that she needed to take care of herself—throwing herself into Lily's recovery had been a convenient way to forgo dealing with the emotional carnage her father had left behind, and while it had hurt to leave her mother alone with that mess, there was no way Julie would have dealt with it otherwise. "I love you, sweetie."
"I love you too, mama. I'll talk to you soon, okay?"
Lily swiped left and disconnected the call, but remained on the steps for a moment longer, letting out a long breath to attempt to calm her nerves. Talking to her mother only served to remind her how desperately important it was that she and Encore could come out on the other side of this okay.
—SEVEN—
"Put that camera down and come sit next to me, Lily." Caine Baylor's booming voice cut through the din of the entire family preparing a table full of food on the veranda of the big house. Finn watched Lily, who had been crouched down taking photos of Gracie playing with plastic ponies on the floor, straighten and cast a smile over her shoulder at his father.
Every Saturday, his parents showed up for the mid-day meal. It was a good time, everyone coming together, catching up on the week. While he hadn't always appreciated his parents in his youth, he'd come to see them more as equals in the last several years. They were more of a team and a community than parents and children, especially after they'd lost Gage's parents, and it was never more evident than when they gathered together for their weekly meal. Through the week, whoever wasn't tending the store they ran showed up for lunch or dinner, came to keep the kids, or lend a hand on the ranch, but the feeling on Saturday was different. Joyful, relaxed; the one day of the week Finn didn't ride any horses and Emma didn't teach any lessons. More often than not, her parents would cross the snake rail fence separating their properties and join them. It was a day to relax and just enjoy one another's company.
And Finn would have been able to relax—if there wasn't that little rub every time he saw his family engaging with Lily. His father had always been a harmless flirt, and he'd taken to her right away, with his wife laughing and rolling her eyes at him. Of course, Noah and Emma were comfortable and warm with her, and Dane had taken an interest in seeing her photos of the ranch. The kids loved her already, he observed, as Gracie lifted her arms in the universal signal for 'up' as Lily straightened.
She laughed, swinging her camera under her arm and onto her hip as she lifted Gracie up out of her pile of toys and onto her other hip. "It's a two-fer, Caine."
At the other end of the veranda, Finn took a deep, silent breath and hunched over the bottle of beer Dane had brought him. He watched as Lily crossed the floor, easy and comfortable, and deposited Gracie into his father's lap, sliding onto the bench seat next to him at the table. If he hadn't known any better, he would have guessed she'd been at the Baylor ranch for weeks, not days. It felt that long, too. Too long. Too long for her to be turning up in places he didn't expect her, like his thoughts at night when he tried to sleep, and around the ranch, crouched down or even sprawled out on her belly getting an angle he would never in a million years have expected would produce an interesting photo. If she insisted on staying until he was finished with her horse, he'd never survive.
He didn't hear what they said, but he watched his mother attentively ask Lily questions and his father give her shoulder a friendly squeeze, and Finn's chest tightened. She laughed, tipping her head back, and he could see the joy all the way to her eyes. He watched her for a while, interacting with his parents, flicking his eyes away just often enough that he wouldn't get caught staring. She looked completely at home; like she belonged here, and it was clear his family felt the same way.
"You coming to eat?" Ren's voice interrupted his thoughts and he straightened, finally lifting the beer to his lips and taking his first drink. It wasn't all that cold anymore.
"Yeah."
He moved to the bench and took his spot next to his mother, across from his father and Lily. The conversation around the table wasn't all that different from the first night Lily had been with his family. His parents kept firing questions about her riding, and her photos, and Lily answered them with a kind tone in her voice that sounded like she'd known them forever. When Gracie finished her pieces of chicken and corn ahead of everyone else and fussed to get down, Lily insisted Ren sit back down and helped the toddler out of her high chair.
*
After dinner, Finn sat back on one of the padded porch chairs while everyone else assembled on the wide steps to watch a 'show' Gage had decided to put on. He could see everything from his vantage point, including the movement out of the corner of his eye when Lily started to try to discreetly clear the table. She'd been snapping photos from the rail of the porch and when the light started to fade and the 'show' turned into playing in the sandbox while everyone else chatted on the steps, she slipped away, carefully collecting empty bottles from the table and letting herself back into the house.
Against his better judgment, and feel
ing better with a few beers in him, Finn dragged himself out of the chair. Ren noticed him, and started to get up, but he shook his head. She'd spent the better part of the afternoon putting together the huge meal they were all now in a food coma from eating, and he knew she hadn't been having an easy time with this pregnancy, either.
Lily had stacked a few empty plates onto one of the serving platters and he pinched a couple more empty beer bottles between his fingers on the left hand, and lifted the heavy platter with his right, widening the small gap she'd left in the door with his hip as he backed into the kitchen.
Spotlighted by the fixture over the sink, she had her back turned, rinsing empty beer bottles and setting them aside. She looked completely at home moving around Ren's kitchen. She glanced up and offered him that soft smile that dimpled her cheeks and worked like a line, drawing him straight in.
"Hey," she said, and turned back to the sink, shifting wordlessly to give him space to deposit his bottles into the sink. As he slid the plates onto the counter, she stepped back into the space. So close he could smell her shampoo and feel the warmth emanating from her.
His pulse went from 0 to 60 when she glanced back up at him, that smile still tugging at one corner of her lips and right at the base of his heart. A stray lock of her wheat-gold hair had slipped over her eyes and with her hands full, and wet, she blew upward in a failed attempt to get rid of it. Without thinking, he brushed it back, his fingertips tracing across her brow. Despite his speeding heartbeat, everything else around them slowed and quieted. With her big, dark eyes locked on his, she wet her lips and Finn thought he felt his knees go weak.
He tucked her hair behind her ear, hearing blood rushing in his own, and let his fingers linger on the soft spot behind the delicate shell of her ear. A little bit of alcohol in his blood made him braver than he expected, especially now that he'd touched her silky skin, standing so close he could pick out the scent of coconut and brown sugar. She could easily taste as good as she smelled. And what would it hurt to find out?
Secondhand Heart Page 4
