0373659458 (R)

by Karen Templeton

  “My true color? It was at one time. Now it has help. And don’t look too closely, I haven’t had a chance yet to find a decent local colorist. If there is such a thing.”

  His mouth twitched. “I wouldn’t’ve pegged you to care about stuff like that.”

  “You’ve met my mother, what do you think?” she said, and he smiled, then nodded toward the toddler. “How on earth did that happen?”

  Mallory angled her head to look down at that angelic little face, smeared with barbecue sauce and ice cream. His mouth open, he released a shuddering little sigh and sagged back into sleep, and her chest cramped. “He wanted a ride on the ‘car chair,’ he called it. So I obliged. I’d forgotten how quickly little kids can pass out, though. One minute we were having quite the conversation and the next—silence.”

  “I’m sorry, the kid weighs a ton—”

  “I can’t really feel him, Zach,” she said gently. “Not on my legs, anyway.”

  “Oh. Right. Sorry.”

  “No worries, I’m used to—”

  “Idiots being insensitive?”

  “You’re hardly insensitive. And you’re definitely not an idiot. And anyway, most people aren’t that way on purpose. They simply don’t know. I sure didn’t before it happened to me. In any case, I don’t take offense very easily.” She paused. “Except when I get the feeling someone’s deliberately avoiding me.” Even in the dark, she could see his eyes dart to hers. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”

  One side of his mouth ticked up. “It wasn’t personal.”

  “The hell you say.”

  At least he laughed before he sighed. “I guess I felt a little blindsided. Since I didn’t know you were coming.”

  “You’re kidding. I assumed Val told you.”

  He shook his head. “Although I did wonder why dinner had been moved here.”

  “She said she has too many stairs. But I don’t understand. What was there to be blindsided about?”

  Zach reached up to fiddle with his glasses, then leaned forward, his hands clasped together. “Like I said, it wasn’t you. It’s just...well. I probably said more than I should have. Earlier, I mean. At lunch?”

  Honestly, what was it with men being so damned afraid of coming across as vulnerable? As human, for heaven’s sake? “Please don’t tell me you were embarrassed.”

  “Not embarrassed as much as...unnerved.”

  No surprise there. “Because?”

  “I’m not much of a sharer. Not generally, anyway.”

  She smiled. “Not even with your wife?”

  A beat or two preceded, “The one exception.”

  That didn’t surprise her, either. “And somehow that all added up to you deciding to give me a wide berth.”

  He pushed out a sound that was half sigh, half laugh. “I guess it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, does it?”

  “Not from where I’m sitting, no. Although what it sounded like to me, was that you’ve been carting some of that stuff around inside your head for a long time. It needed to be set free.”

  After a moment, he nodded. “You sound like you’ve been there.”

  “Takes one to know one,” she said on a breath. “Because expectations are a real pain in the butt.”

  “Whose?”

  “Does it matter? Our own, other people’s...the result’s the same. We get so caught up in what we think we’re supposed to be, how we’re supposed to act, that we ignore how we are. That what we’re really feeling isn’t valid, you know? Good or bad.”

  “Or we don’t want everyone else to worry.”

  “Exactly.” The little one stirred, then sat up, blinked at Mallory with a crumpled brow like he couldn’t for the life of him figure out who she was or how he’d gotten there, then reached for his daddy, his lower lip quivering. Chuckling, Zach stood and hiked his son into his arms, his protectiveness so potent it practically bounced off the small room’s walls. “It’s also one of the few things we feel we have control over,” Mallory said, folding her arms over the sudden chill left in the child’s wake.

  Molding the little cutie to his chest and cupping his head, Zach looked at her for a long moment. “Is control such a bad thing?”

  She wasn’t sure if the question was rhetorical or not, but she answered anyway. “It is if it keeps us from living a genuine life. Don’t you think? Especially if it’s only another word for fear—”

  “Dad? Where are you?”

  “Be there in a sec,” Zach yelled back to Jeremy, then frowned at Mallory for another couple of seconds before finally saying, “You up for a little ride tomorrow morning?”

  She actually jerked. “With you?”

  “Yes, with me. I’ve got an appointment someplace I think you might be interested in seeing.”

  “Where?”

  “Like I’d give you a chance to say no?”

  “That sounds ominous.”

  “Guess you’ll just have to trust me, won’t you?”

  There was something almost playful in his voice. Something warm and kind and...and challenging. A far different sort of challenge to the ones she was used to facing, she suspected, although no less scary in its own way. But yes, she trusted him. Even if she wasn’t sure she trusted herself.

  “What time will you pick me up?” she said, and he grinned.

  * * *

  Zach wasn’t entirely sure what’d come over him the night before. Except hearing the gentle challenge in her voice, about figuring out the difference between control and fear, about living a genuine life...it occurred to him maybe the woman could use a dose of her own medicine. Why he should be the one to administer it, he hadn’t wholly figured out yet. Except Heidi had been big on looking for ways to make the world a better place, one day at a time, one person at a time. The same philosophy he’d grown up with, actually, but it wasn’t until he fell in love with the world’s most enthusiastic proponent of that mind-set that it finally got through that making someone else happy was the only way to be truly happy yourself.

  An area of his life he’d sorely neglected of late.

  Of course, it was highly possible his plan could blow up in his face, that Mallory would say, “Oh, hell, no,” and wheel herself into the next county.

  “You’ve brought me to another ranch?” she said as they drove up to the Flying Star, not ten miles from the Colorado border.

  No, he hadn’t come clean yet. Although he could tell it’d been driving her nuts that he hadn’t. Despite that—not to mention how her musky, floral scent had slapped his senses silly when he’d lifted her out of the wheelchair to set her in the passenger seat of his truck—conversation had been easy enough, on the drive up. Clearly she did trust him, which was equal parts gratifying and terrifying. Yes, even though he’d gotten himself into this mess all by himself. She had a million questions, it seemed, about the area, the town. Not the touristy stuff, which she already knew, but what made its heart beat, she said. What made people call it home.

  In answer, Zach had pointed out the windshield toward the landscape, the vibrant fall sky, and she’d slowly nodded, her smile saying she understood.

  “It’s so...real.”

  “Yeah,” he’d said.

  “But it’s more about the people, isn’t it?”

  He’d smirked. “Don’t kid yourself. We’re not perfect.”

  “Exactly,” she’d sighed out, like this was a huge relief.

  She’d also talked a lot about Landon—and to the kid, actually, since he’d called while they were driving. She’d even turned her phone around to introduce him to Zach—Edgar’s vet and their new friend, she’d said. Good enough, he’d decided. Safe, anyway.

  “So where are you two going?” Landon had asked. Zach decided the kid must resemble his father more than Mallory, although in the tiny phone he’d only gotten a glimpse of wild dark hair.

  “I don’t really know, Zach won’t tell me.”

  “Mom. Really?”

  “See what you have to look f
orward to?” she’d said to Zach, only to then laugh and ask how his father was, and the conversation had devolved into the sweetly mundane, a comfortingly ordinary exchange between a mother and son who clearly adored each other. And Zach’s chest had fisted, both because it was obvious the separation sucked for both of them, logic be damned, and because he got to thinking what it would’ve been like, had Heidi lived—

  “It’s not just ‘another ranch,’ exactly,” he now said, cutting the engine in front of the main house as he cut off his thoughts. Then he turned to Mallory, his gut doing a quick flip at the puzzled, but amused, look in those clear gray eyes. Because she was real, too. Although not in the least mundane. Or comforting. He looked back at the house. “Think of this as...an opportunity.”

  “To...?”

  “Take the next step in being that example to Landon.”

  He met her gaze again to find her somehow frowning and smiling simultaneously, although by this time, Adrienne and Booth Edison, the facility’s owners, had come out to the truck to meet them, and Mallory looked toward them.

  And released a soft “Oh...”

  Probably because Adrienne also used a wheelchair.

  Around his mother’s age, Zach supposed, Adrienne greeted them both with her customary huge smile, waiting patiently while Zach retrieved Mallory’s chair and got her settled into it. She did everything but huff her annoyance, though, at having to accept his help. Adrienne chuckled.

  “Honey, a word of advice—when you get the chance to get a good-lookin’ man’s arms around you, take it!”

  “Yeah,” her husband said, “I kinda figured you weren’t nearly as helpless as you make out to be.”

  “You got that right. So.” Adrienne looked back at Mallory. “You ready?”

  She glanced up at Zach, then back at Adrienne. “I’m not entirely sure what I’m supposed to be ready for.”

  The graying brunette gave Zach an admonishing look. “You didn’t tell her?”

  “You all came out before I had the chance.”

  “Which I suppose you never got in the forty minutes it took you to get up here,” Adrienne said, then turned to Mallory. “Men. Well, come on, Henry’s waiting. You may as well come, too, Zachary, since this was your idea. And no, Booth, the mare can wait, she ain’t gonna foal in the next twenty minutes.”

  * * *

  Of course by the time they reached the ranch Mallory had an inkling about what Zach had up his sleeve. What she hadn’t yet decided was whether to be touched by the gesture or throttle the man. As if she could do such a thing. But even if she hadn’t figured out what was afoot, the long ramps inside the squeaky-clean, metal-walled barn would’ve given it away. As though sensing they needed space, Adrienne hung back, talking quietly with Henry. Or maybe Henry was the handsome, and very placid, chestnut gelding standing at the far end of the ramp. All saddled up. Waiting.

  For her.

  “You want me to get on a horse.” Her voice echoed in the cavernous space, the slight echo taunting. Chiding.

  “Think of it more as...several things falling into place. What you said the other day, then last night. Then your mother reminding me about how you haven’t ridden since your accident—”

  “So this is her idea?”

  “No, ma’am, entirely mine. And it didn’t even occur to me until I remembered the appointment this morning. But this isn’t about me, or her, or anybody wanting you to do anything. It’s about...”

  He squatted beside her, a move that under normal circumstances would’ve irritated the snot out of her—as though she were a child who needed to be cajoled into doing something she didn’t want to do. And she wasn’t entirely sure that wasn’t the case here.

  His smile would be her undoing. “Like I said, I’m only giving you an opportunity. The rest is up to you. If it puts your mind at ease, though, this is what Adrienne does full-time.”

  The horse shifted slightly, as though impatient for her to get on with it. Of course she knew that wasn’t true, that therapy horses were the very epitomes of patience—

  “I’m scared,” she said, so softly she could barely hear her own voice.

  “I know.”

  Zach didn’t touch her, didn’t try to reassure her or talk her out of her feelings. Didn’t even ask her to explain them. All he did was give her permission to feel them.

  Something nobody else had ever done.

  Mallory shut her eyes, thinking how rah-rah everyone else had been since the accident, pushing her forward, never letting her give up, never giving her even a moment to doubt herself. Sometimes they’d meant well—like Mama—other times it was because helplessness makes other people uncomfortable. Her ex, for example. But whatever their motives, the result had been the same: A lot more of her so-called progress than she’d realized had been for others’ benefit than her own.

  “I can really leave if I want to?”

  Zach stood, his hands on his hips. “You really can.”

  Such a heady thing, freedom.

  She grasped the wheels’ rims. Breathed in, out. In, out. Felt Zach’s touch on her shoulder, light and firm and steady. Then Adrienne rolled up next to her.

  “Zach tells me you were a barrel racer.”

  “I was. Once upon a time.”

  “You must miss it.”

  Almost the same words Zach had used when asking her about her acting career. Her reaction, though, couldn’t’ve been more different. Because this time, heat surged through her. Of remembered adrenaline rushes. Joy. That freedom thing again.

  Her heart started beating so fast she half thought she might pass out. “I do.”

  “For me,” Adrienne said, “it was being afraid of not being able to feel the horse under me. Of not having the control I’d been so proud of. Finally realized nobody else was gonna get past that for me. But me.”

  Mallory turned to the older woman. “How long before you got back on?”

  Adrienne’s lips tilted, like she understood. “Six months. And don’t go comparing yourself to me or anybody else,” she said, when Mallory looked back at the horse, frowning. “Everyone’s path is different.”

  “And some are shorter than others.”

  “This is very true.”

  Zach squeezed her shoulder. “Would it be easier if I left?”

  “Probably. But I don’t want you to.”

  Adrienne chuckled. “You saying what I think you’re saying?”

  “God help me, but...okay.” She gripped the rims again. “Let’s do this.”

  She had a choice of using a harness and crane to be set on the horse, or—as Adrienne suggested—rolling up the ramp into a closer position so she could grab the horn and hoist herself over the saddle, which was specially fitted with a back brace and various belts to strap her in and wrap around her thighs.

  “There’s as many ways of getting on and off a horse as there are people. It might take some trial and error to figure out which method works best for you. We can even help you train a horse to kneel so you get on, if that’s a method that appeals. You get in and out of a car by yourself? Without a lift, I mean?”

  “Yeah, actually.”

  “Then you should be able to do this.”

  Mallory nodded toward the horse. “Could he and I have a little chat first?”

  “Sure thing. Henry?” The horse’s ears flicked. “Got somebody for you to meet.”

  The horse calmly eyed her as she rolled up to him, lowering his head so she could finger his bridle’s noseband, inhale the intoxicating aroma of leather and horse. Maybe the scent seemed stronger because they were inside, or maybe because anticipation had heightened her senses, but it’d been a long time since she’d felt this...ready. For anything.

  “Are we cool, dude?” she whispered, gently stroking his blaze. “Because I have no idea what I’m doing...”

  Then she looked over at Zach, still there, his thumbs hooked in his jeans’ pockets, his mouth canted in that sorta smile that had already become endearin
gly familiar. And frighteningly dear.

  “Okay,” she said. “Let’s do this.”

  Zach moved in to hold the bridle, an unnecessary precaution since Henry was the calmest horse in the universe. Still, it felt good knowing he was there, that he wouldn’t let her topple off the animal, even if he couldn’t prevent her looking like an idiot as, with Booth’s help, she finally got herself in the damn saddle.

  But once she was...

  “Oh, my goodness,” she breathed out, realizing she was grinning like a fool.

  Zach laughed. “How’s it feel?”

  “Incredible.” She looked down at Adrienne. “Can I take him out?”

  “If you want, sure. Wouldn’t try anything too fancy, though—”

  “I won’t.” She reached out to pat the horse’s neck, then wrapped the reins around her hand, the familiarity of the simple gesture sending a thrill of pleasure through her. “I promise.” Her gaze met Zach’s. “You’ll come with me?”

  There went that smile again. Only this time she saw a spark in his eyes she hadn’t before. If pressed, she’d have to say the man was tickled pink with himself, that his plan had worked. Which in turn ignited in Mallory a spark of another sort, one she hadn’t felt in longer than she could remember:

  Competitiveness.

  “You have to ask?” Zach said, and she thought, Oh, yeah, buddy...the game is on. Not that she knew when, or how, she’d get even, but get even, she would.

  Because she was a real big believer in the Golden Rule.

  “What’re you grinning about?” Zach asked, a lightness buoying his words that made her heart sing and ache at the same time. She glanced down at him, at this dear, kind man who deserved a good, swift kick in the rear to blast him out of the hole he seemed determined to bury himself in.

  “That right in this moment,” she said, looking in front of her, “things couldn’t be better.” When she lowered her gaze again, he was facing forward, his expression...careful, she thought. “Thank you.”

  A smile flickered. “You’re welcome. But it was no big deal.”

  “For you, maybe,” she said after a moment. “For me? Hell, yes.”

  His quiet laugh wrapped right around her heart and squeezed tight.

  It was a careful ride, for sure, this first venture back into that world she’d loved more than anything for so long. But every bit as thrilling as the first time she’d felt the power of a horse galloping underneath her, her first rodeo, her first win. She couldn’t feel her legs, no, but somehow Henry became her legs. And she’d never felt more free.