by Evie Nichole
Bella’s blue eyes were shining. Her little cheeks were tight as she beamed at him. “Really?”
“Yes.” Laredo realized that he had not said that nearly often enough. “It’s absolutely true. So, why don’t you go show me how you and Smokey can run barrels like a championship team?”
“Yes, yes, yes!” Bella was already off her barstool and bolting for the front door.
“Uh, Bella?” Laredo called after her. “Pretty sure you know you’re supposed to put your plate in the sink.”
Bella’s colossal-sized groan was almost comical. “But, Daddy! There are horses!”
“But first there are dishes!”
She drew back, looking surprised. Then she bit her lower lip and cocked her head at him as though she were seeing him for the first time. “Aria makes you really happy, Daddy. You should stay here more often.”
From the mouths of babes. Wasn’t that what people were always saying?
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Aria could see this particular trouble coming as soon as it got out of its overpriced SUV in the parking lot. Of course, Aria was busy teaching an advanced class in the riding ring. She was sitting in a chair beneath a big beach umbrella she had rigged up many years ago to protect her from the brutal Rocky Mountain sun. The class had three kids in it. Each child owned their own horse, and all of them were preparing for the first stock show coming up at the beginning of the summer season.
“That’s a good decision, Britney!” Aria called out. Britney’s horse wasn’t quite as seasoned as the other two in the class. “You know you can trust your teammate, right?”
“Right!” Britney called out.
The three kids were doing what was called a Team Penning exercise that involved separating two or three calves from a bigger group and then, with the help of their teammates, getting the calves put into a makeshift pen and keeping them there.
“Okay!” Aria stood up and ducked out from under her umbrella. She could see Buck Owen, his wife, and his son, Mason, all heading in her direction. Aria really wanted to prolong the moment she had to deal with whatever was about to happen. That meant focusing on this class. “We all know that Casey’s horse is the best at the sorting, right?”
“Yes!” all three girls chorused together.
“That doesn’t mean that she’s the only one who needs to be doing this. The rest of you won’t get any better if we all just depend on Casey’s poor gelding to do all the work.” Aria waggled her eyebrows at the girls. “It’s like finding the super-smart math geek and just copying off their paper all year long. You’ll get good grades but nobody will learn anything!”
There was lot of laughter as Aria outlined an exercise for the girls that she wanted them to try. They were game, and soon Aria was returning to her umbrella to watch. Unfortunately, that is where Buck Owen and family were now camped out waiting.
“Hello, Aria.” Buck’s toothy grin was on full display. The last time Aria had seen this guy, he had been threatening to sue her. That did not make her happy to see him. “How have you been?” Buck’s words sounded as fake as the cowboy outfit he’d picked out that morning.
“I’m great,” Aria told him. She was hoping that her tone and the fact that she wasn’t looking at him because she was watching her class would be enough to send him packing. It wasn’t.
“So, we went over to the Flying W, and Mason had his first lesson.” Buck sounded almost conversational. Why was he telling her this? And why were they at Clouds End if they were taking lessons at the Flying W now?
“I’m sorry,” Aria told Buck stiffly. “But I’m really confused as to why you’re here. Can I help you with something?”
“Mason fell off during his lesson.” Buck’s tone was so overly serious that he sounded as if he were discussing a major stock market crash or something. “It was very bad. Mason has refused to get back onto a horse unless you’re there.”
Aria suppressed a snort with difficulty. So, at least Mason had a brain. Kids often knew when a coach or a teacher was a safe person to be around. Aria might push her students out of their comfort zones, but she took their safety seriously.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Aria murmured. “But I don’t think it’s appropriate for Mason to be taking lessons here. I’m sure the Flying W has a plan to deal with a young rider’s appropriate fears after a fall.”
Now the mother puffed up her very generous bosom and put her hands on her hips. The woman was several inches shorter than Aria. In fact, she could not be over five feet tall. “You need to understand that we’re not kidding around here.”
“Excuse me?” Aria turned to the woman and raised her eyebrows. “I don’t think we’ve ever met. You are?”
“Darcy Owen.” Her attitude suggested that she had grown up a part of Denver’s high society. Great. She probably knew Helena. Maybe they’d hung out together. The woman was weirdly familiar, but Aria could not place her. “I’m Mason’s mother.”
“I see.” Aria wasn’t in the mood to placate. “And what do you mean when you say not kidding around? You have yet to explain to me why you’re here. I’m very sorry that Mason fell off. That’s rough. But I’m not a miracle worker.”
“We’re prepared to spend a lot of money.” Darcy’s huffy tone of voice was about the biggest turn-off that Aria had ever heard.
Behind Aria, she heard a little girl’s laughter. That was when she realized that Laredo had mounted up on his big black gelding and was now tooling around the front pasture with Bella and Smokey. Bella was excited. She was vibrant. And she was cantering Smokey in circles around her father’s horse.
“That’s Smokey,” Mason informed his mother. “She came from the Hernandez ranch.”
Aria stared down at the little boy and tried to figure out where in the hell he’d gotten that information. Of course, Mason had been there the day that Darren and Jaeger had shown up, but to Aria’s knowledge, he had never seen Smokey before unless it was in her stall.
“What a pretty little horse!” Darcy Owen exclaimed.
Uh oh. This was not good. Smokey was extremely striking in her own little way. And right now, the horse was just as happy as the rider. It made for a very stunning visual, and unfortunately for Aria, she could see Darcy Owen imagining her own child in Smokey’s little saddle.
“I’m prepared to pay ten thousand dollars for a horse for my son,” Buck Owen said in a voice filled with such pomposity that Aria wasn’t even sure she’d heard him right.
“I’m sorry.” Aria cleared her throat. “Did you say ten grand?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” Aria sighed. “Believe me. I am not saying that there are not horses out there for sale—good ones—for both a whole lot more and a whole lot less than that number. But we are not talking about a short stirrup pony here.”
“A what?” Buck looked confused.
Aria rolled her eyes. “A small child’s jumping pony. Never mind. I think my point is that you can spend as much as you want and your kid still needs to learn to actually ride the horse. He doesn’t keep his heels down. He doesn’t listen. And you”—Aria glowered at Buck—“push him mercilessly because you want results.”
Aria would not normally have this conversation in front of Mason. The poor kid was standing there wide-eyed, listening to her rag on him. It wasn’t fair. But these parents needed to know that they could not simply expect their boy to start winning because they spent a horrendous amount of money on a horse.
Darcy pointed to Smokey. “We want that horse.”
“She’s not for sale.” This statement went against every single grain in Aria’s body. In her world, every horse was for sale. But Smokey belonged to Bella.
“I guess Paul Weatherby was right about you,” Darcy sniffed.
Aria rolled her eyes and groaned. “Oh, please. Tell me what the great Paul Weatherby had to say about me. I promise you I really don’t care. You realize that man is about as crooked as an old horse thief from someplace notorious
like Deadwood, right?”
“Paul Weatherby is an officer of the law!” Darcy Owen sucked in a shocked breath. Her sprayed blond hair did not even move during this process. It was fashioned into a sort of helmet and did not look as though it had any ability to be flexible. “Weatherby is a very talented horseman. But you’re probably jealous of him.”
Aria raised her eyebrows. “Are we discussing the same Paul Weatherby that I’ve beaten on the summer circuit for the last three years?”
Darcy stumbled a bit mentally. Aria could see it happening. Then she shook her head and waved her hands in front of her. This had gone far enough. Aria was supposed to be teaching a class. She left the Owens standing underneath her umbrella and went back into the ring to talk to the girls about their exercise.
They had done a fantastic job, and Aria took great pleasure in telling them that right before she dismissed them to go walk out their horses. She knew the girls would take a little trail ride through the home pasture before indulging in a long bathing session with their horses in the barn. These three reminded Aria of what it had been like to be a “barn rat” during her teenaged years. All of the laughing and good-natured ribbing and the wonderful sense of camaraderie was half of the fun when it came to owning a horse.
By the time Aria turned around and headed back to her umbrella, the Owen family was conspicuously missing. There was a perverse bit of satisfaction in thinking that Aria had gotten rid of them. Except that hadn’t actually happened. Aria could see Darcy, Buck, and Mason Owen down in the home pasture talking to Laredo and Bella.
“Miss Aria!” Aria’s third group lesson of the day was now beginning to arrive in the ring. One of the enthusiastic young ladies in this advanced beginner class was furiously waving at Aria. “Can we get on, please? I’m totally ready to mount. And I got new boots! You have to see them. They are so perfect for riding…” The kid was going on and on.
Aria sighed. This was the thing about teaching kids. They were kids. They had these little idiosyncrasies and bits of weirdness that were only present because they hadn’t actually figured out how to behave yet. Unfortunately, that also meant that Aria was part of the “village” responsible for teaching kids that they were not the center of the universe and that only hard work was worth bragging about.
“Go ahead and get on your horses,” Aria told her class. “And, Jasmine, I’m happy that you got new boots. But I hope that you stretched them out properly so that the leather doesn’t make your toes tip down instead of your heels.”
“Oh.” Jasmine’s little smile froze on her face. “I didn’t think about that.”
“Well, keep it in mind or you’ll wind up in the dirt. Breaking in new boots is pretty tough to do.” Aria remembered more than one time wishing she had just resoled her old boots instead of buying new ones. But every new generation had to learn that for themselves.
From the corner of her eye, Aria watched Buck and Laredo yapping. It bugged her to think that the Owen family was down there and Laredo was being nice to them, and doing what? What was he doing? Clouds End was her business. Laredo was a boarder. He was… Dammit! What was he?
“Trot!” Aria called out.
She still had a class to teach. She was barely paying attention. She was too busy trying to figure out what Laredo and the Owen family was up to. Were they conspiring against her? Was Buck Owen going behind her back to purchase a horse without her consent?
Wait. He wasn’t Aria’s client anymore. It didn’t matter what horse he bought. It wasn’t her problem. This was driving her insane. Was she really that much of a control freak? Maybe she was. It was hard to say. That was probably the reason why she never stayed in any long-term relationships. Okay. Long-term was pushing it. Aria didn’t do relationships. But she had told Laredo that she loved him.
I said I loved him! Have I lost my mind?
She tried to focus on her class, but then she spotted Laredo and Bella leading Smokey and the black horse back up toward the riding ring. The Owen family was trailing along as though they were groupies at a concert. Mason was walking beside Bella. The poor kid had been saddled with some seriously terrible parents. That was Aria’s opinion anyway. Not that anyone cared.
“Um, Miss Aria?”
“Huh?”
Aria turned around to see her class staring at her. All six of them had their horses parked in the middle of the riding ring, and they were waiting to see what she was going to tell them to do. Right. Because she was teaching.
With a deep sigh, Aria tried to focus on the task at hand. Perhaps that was why relationships were dangerous. They encouraged you to focus on something other than your day. Then those same relationships forced you to let people into your life when you didn’t really have room for them.
Aria really cared about Bella, and she did love Laredo. But what did all of that mean? Where was this going, and how was it going to affect her life? What did it look like? Aria had been doing the same things day in and day out for so long now that she wasn’t used to changes beyond whom the students were or a new horse to deal with. She liked the sameness. It was comforting. When she was growing up, the repetitive nature of this job and the barn life had offset the absolute chaos caused by her father’s drinking. Her father had been unpredictable at best when he was drunk. She had never known what her evenings would look like. She hadn’t known if he would be friendly or angry or sad or screaming. It had always been like spinning a wheel and hoping to win the lottery. As an adult, she had sworn to herself that she was not going to allow her life to become like that again. So, how did Laredo and Bella fit into that? How was she supposed to reconcile all of these things together and try to make sense out of it all?
“Okay, class!” Aria clapped her hands together. “Here’s what we’re going to do today.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Laredo tried not to be too judgmental regarding the Owen family, but the fact that Darcy Owen reminded him very strongly of Helena was not working in their favor. He glanced over at Bella. She was standing beside Smokey with the reins clutched so tightly in her hands that her knuckles were white.
“I’m very sorry,” Laredo said for what felt like the millionth time. “Smokey is not for sale.”
“Ten grand,” Buck Owen blustered again. “Come on. That’s twice what the mare is worth!”
“Apparently not, if you’re offering me that kind of money.” Laredo had dealt with men like this frequently in his business dealings. They were the ones that thought money was the only thing that made the world go round. “If you really want a kid’s horse, why don’t you just ask Aria to find one for you?”
Darcy Owen made a face. “I can’t believe you actually ride here. That woman is a horrible trainer. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about most of the time.”
“Oh. So, you rode as a kid?” Laredo bobbed his head but wasn’t surprised in the least when Darcy shook her head.
“No,” Darcy snorted. “I’ve never been on a horse. It’s not my thing. But I know a lot about riding. My family rode—or my sister, actually—when I was growing up. She was five years ahead of me in school. She lives on a ranch now. I suppose I could ask Helena to find us a horse, but she’s just so busy these days.”
Laredo felt his smile freeze. It was impossible. It had to be impossible. This woman was much younger than Helena. That was true. Helena had been one of those people who had grown up in an old family where the connections to Denver society were still strong, but the money was gone. They had aspired to a lot more than they had. After marrying Laredo, Helena had cut ties with her family.
Laredo cleared his throat. He really wanted this little interlude to end. But now, Bella was staring strangely at the woman named Darcy. She was going to open her mouth to say something about the connection and then the whole thing was just going to go downhill from there.
“Perhaps that’s the best idea,” Laredo agreed. He started to walk his black toward the barn. “Bella, let’s go put the horses away.�
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“Wait.” Darcy was tapping her index finger against her lower lip. “What did you say your name was? I know there are a lot of Hernandez brothers, but one of you married my sister.”
“None of us are married,” Laredo told Darcy. “I’m sorry that I don’t know who your sister is.”
“Her name is Helena.”
“That’s my mom!” Bella burst out suddenly.
The way that Darcy and Bella stared at each other was nothing short of comical. Laredo sighed. Apparently, this situation was not going to be improving anytime soon. Why did this always happen when things in his life were just beginning to settle down?
“Your mother?” Darcy was staring so strangely at Bella. “I don’t see any resemblance at all.”
“I don’t look like my mom,” Bella said flatly. “I’m a Hernandez.”
That’s my girl. Laredo could not help but grin at that very matter-of-fact statement. Of course, now this whole thing was going to take on a new life of its own. They were about to get to the favor-requesting phase of this new connection. He could feel it.
“You’re my sister’s kid.” Darcy made a little moue with her lips. “Well, Helena has been living on a ranch near Boulder for a long time now. I’m sure you see her more than I do.”
“Actually, Helena has not visited with Bella since she left more than five years ago,” Laredo said smoothly. He was still trying to walk his black toward the barn. “We really do need to get these horses inside. I have a couple more to ride today.” Laredo attempted to break this off, but Darcy Owens was now intrigued.
“You say my sister hasn’t visited her kid since she left?” Darcy gaped. Then she stared down at Bella. “You poor thing. You should come and stay with us for a while so you can get to know our side of the family.”
