“You got it, hon.” Sharon pivoted forward and clipped the lead line on Darkside’s bridle. “Okay, big guy, let’s take it slow.”
Julia felt the horse shift his weight and suddenly surge forward. Something between a sob and a gasp came out of her throat, and she hoped Sharon couldn’t hear the cowardly sound. She managed not to drop the reins as she grabbed for Darkside’s mane and twisted her fingers into it.
Her mind spun in a disjointed kaleidoscope: the creak of leather, the thud of hooves, the flex and push of huge muscles, the boards of the fence sliding past with the occasional vertical punctuation of a post, the metronomic bob of Darkside’s head, Sharon’s crown of red hair floating along beside his shoulder.
And then it all settled into place as she relaxed and let her body move with the horse, feeling the connection strengthen with each long stride he took. She watched his ears turning forward to see what was coming and backward to see what she wanted to do about it. She let go of his mane and felt the messages traveling back and forth through the reins.
“I’m riding a horse,” she said, the realization hitting her. She felt a knot deep inside her begin to loosen. “I’m riding a horse.”
“In fact, you’re riding the devil horse.”
“I’m riding Darkside,” Julia said, blinking as tears streaked down her cheeks. She leaned forward to bury her face in his mane. “Thank you so much, buddy,” she murmured to him.
“You’ve got an audience,” Sharon said.
Julia sat up and glanced around. Sure enough, every hand in the place had found some task that needed doing right outside the paddock. A few didn’t even bother to pretend to be busy, resting their elbows on the fence and watching.
The instructions her father used to shout at her stepbrothers sounded in her mind. Heels down. Elbows in. Back straight. She tried to follow them all. Somehow she transmitted something to Darkside in the process, because his head came up and his pace seemed to increase.
“Easy there,” Sharon said, pulling the big horse back. “Let’s keep it to a walk.”
They came around to the gate. Sharon unhooked the lead line and stepped away from Darkside’s head. “He’s all yours, hon.”
Darkside hesitated, and Julia clucked at him the way she’d heard her father do. The horse started walking again, following the fence line as though he was in a show ring.
Everything was fine until a rabbit bolted across the paddock ten feet in front of them. The horse stopped abruptly and threw his head up, slamming Julia against his neck. She grabbed at his mane to steady herself and dropped one side of the reins.
“Hey, buddy, easy. It’s just a little bitty bunny,” she said, as she felt his muscles bunch underneath her. She knew she couldn’t control him with the reins or her legs, so she used her voice. “You could squish him like a bug with just one hoof.”
She stroked his shoulder and murmured teasing words as he snorted and danced. She wished she could retrieve the flapping rein so he didn’t catch one of his hooves in it.
Finally, she could sense him relaxing. His breath no longer came out in loud, audible puffs. She gingerly leaned down over his shoulder and snagged the loose rein, gathering it into her hand and turning him back toward Sharon.
His walk was noticeably faster than before, but she let him set the pace, heaving a sigh of relief as Sharon stepped forward to halt their progress.
“You did good,” she said. “I was figuring out what I was going to say to Paul when you got tossed, but you got Darkside back under control.”
“Under control?” Julia gave a shaky laugh. “All I did was embarrass him into not running from a tiny little rabbit.”
“If you can embarrass this pain-in-the-ass stud, you’re a better horsewoman than I am,” Sharon said.
Julia made a moue of disbelief. “I think I’d better take some lessons before you turn me loose again.” She patted Darkside’s shoulder. “I got a little ahead of myself.”
“Maybe. You want to take another turn around on the lead line?”
Julia nodded. “If you don’t mind. It’s so amazing to me that I’m sitting on a great, big horse and not—” She stopped herself just before she said having a seizure.
“Not what?” Sharon asked.
“Er, not terrified.” Julia’s heart squeezed at the near miss.
“Well, it’s downright sensible to be terrified of Darkside, but there’s no reason to be afraid of most horses. I can put you up on a nice quiet ride for your next lesson.”
“No, I need to ride my whisper horse,” Julia said. She had so little time left with him.
“Lord knows he can use the exercise and the socialization. I don’t think I’ll be putting any of my other lessons up on him, though.”
Sharon led them once more around the paddock before Julia felt too guilty about pulling her away from her busy day and asked to stop.
She swung her right leg back over the saddle and braced her body weight on her arms as she kicked her left foot out of the stirrup. George caught her around the waist and helped ease her downward to the faraway ground, where her knees promptly collapsed under her.
“Happens all the time,” the groom said, grabbing her elbow to support her. “You ain’t used those muscles for riding before.”
“I wasn’t on the horse for that long,” Julia said, feeling her blush go atomic. She knew it was mostly the aftermath of sheer nerves. “I feel like such a wimp.”
Sharon chuckled. “George, I guess you’re going to have to handle the tack.”
Julia wobbled over to the fence and braced herself on it. She gave him an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry to add to your work.”
“Happy to do it after seeing the devil horse walking around as quiet as a lead pony at the track,” the groom said, already running the stirrups up their leathers.
Julia’s knees had gone from jelly to rubber, so she pushed off the fence and managed to stagger through the gate Sharon had opened. As she came out into the open space behind the barn, several hands nodded to her. She nodded back.
A young man carrying a water bucket walked past her and said, “Nice job, ma’am.”
Paul’s friend Lynnie came up and shook her hand. “You got a way with horses.”
“Just the one,” Julia said. “He’s my whisper horse.”
“So Sharon’s got you believing that stuff.” Lynnie walked away, shaking her head.
“Not me,” Sharon said. “Darkside’s got her believing it.”
Chapter 23
ERIC’S MAMA IS on line one,” Verna announced through the intercom.
Terri only called if there was a problem, so Paul fought down a touch of worry as he excused himself to the client sitting in front of his desk. He picked up the receiver and walked over to the window, lowering his voice. “Is everything all right with Eric?”
“Eric’s fine, but his babysitter’s sick, so I need someone to pick him up from school and keep him until I get home from work. Jimmy’s on a job where there’s no cell phone reception, so I figured I’d give you a try.”
He glanced at his watch. He had twenty minutes before he’d have to leave. “Sure, I’ll take care of it.”
An idea was forming in Paul’s mind, bringing a smile with it. “Call my cell before you come to pick him up. I might be taking him to visit a friend of mine.”
“You’re a good uncle.”
“You’re a good mother.” He meant it.
Paul hung up and came back to the desk to fill Verna in. He’d been called on for last-minute Eric duty before and usually brought his nephew back to the office. Verna loved having a youngster to spoil. He wrapped up his appointment right on time and headed out the door.
Parking across from the school, he leaned against the Corvette until he saw Eric race out the school’s front door. He crossed the street and planted himself in the flow of kids.
“Uncle Paul! Did you bring the ’Vette?” Eric’s small face lit up like a Christmas tree. “Can you drive by
the school so I can wave to all my friends?”
“Nice to see you too, and Gina has the flu but she should be fine in a few days,” Paul said, giving his nephew a head noogie to further muss his unruly brown hair.
Eric shrugged. “You didn’t look all serious, so I figured nothing really bad had happened to Gina.”
“It’s still polite to pretend to care.”
“I’ll pretend the next time, I promise.”
Paul laughed as he escorted his nephew to the car, slinging the boy’s backpack into the rear seat before Eric scrambled into the front. “Would you like to meet a friend of mine who’s an artist?”
“Like Pa?”
“Kind of like that.” Paul smiled at the comparison.
“Sounds cool.”
Eric made him cruise by the school at five miles an hour while he lorded it over his friends in their mothers’ minivans. As they passed the last clot of children, Eric pulled his head and arm back inside the car and said, “That was cool.”
“New favorite word?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.” Paul punched the in-car telephone on. “You want to say it?”
“Yes, please!”
“The name is Julia.”
“Ju-li-a!” Eric shouted. “Dialing Julia,” he recited along with the car’s electronic voice.
The phone rang repeatedly before a distracted voice said, “Hello? Paul?”
“Eric and I are in the neighborhood and thought we’d come see you. Are you in your studio?”
“Um, yes. Come on over. I’d love to see Eric…and you too, of course.”
Paul hit the disconnect button. “No stealing my girlfriend, okay?”
“I can’t help it if girls like me. They just do.”
“It’s the curse of the Taggart men.”
Eric sighed. “Yeah, it’s kind of a pain, especially when two of ’em like you at the same time. They can get mean.”
“A life lesson you’re lucky you’ve learned young, my boy.”
He pulled up in front of Julia’s temporary studio and turned off the engine. “Take it easy on her. She might get overwhelmed by all this Taggart charm in one room.”
Paul raced Eric to the front door, catching him before he barged through the unlatched screen door. Paul peered into the interior. “Julia?”
She appeared from the dimness, her flaming red hair piled into a messy bun with two paintbrushes speared through it, a huge man’s shirt splattered with paint hanging off her shoulders. She looked good enough to eat. He managed to restrain himself sufficiently to give her a chaste kiss on the lips and an only mildly lascivious squeeze of her nicely rounded behind. She smirked up at him and stepped in close to give his groin a return squeeze under cover of her billowing shirt.
“Nice way to say hello,” he said, as every nerve in his body surged on a spike of lust.
“I’d do better if we didn’t have a chaperone,” she said, cutting her gaze over to the counter where they’d made love before.
He cleared his throat and introduced his nephew. “So Eric wants to see an artist like his father at work.”
“Your dad’s an artist?”
“He painted really cool pictures on my bedroom walls with stencils. Do you use stencils?” Eric wandered toward the easel in the glass room.
“No, I’m more of a freestyle type myself,” Julia said without a tremor in her voice.
“Yeah, me too,” Eric said. He stopped in front of the partially finished painting of Darkside. “It’s the big mean horse from Ms. Sydenstricker’s.”
Paul strolled up to look more closely at the painting. He draped his arm around Julia’s shoulders, just because he couldn’t stop himself from touching her. He gave Eric credit for recognizing the horse; he wasn’t sure he would have, given how close the perspective was and how little was painted. In fact, he didn’t notice a whole lot of progress since the last time he’d seen the picture. Maybe Julia had artist’s block again.
“Is the work going all right?” he asked.
Her green eyes went wide as she looked up at him. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, I know you were struggling a couple of days ago.”
He felt her shoulders relax. “I seem to be past that now, thank God. This just requires a lot of small, careful brushstrokes, so it doesn’t go so quickly. Which is a problem since the auction’s in three days.”
“You could always offer it as it is and promise to finish it later. That might intrigue prospective bidders, sort of like buying a surprise package.”
“I like surprises,” Eric said, his voice coming from the front room. “Hey, Miss Julia, could you draw a picture of me too? Except I want to be driving the ’Vette, not a motorcycle.”
Julia’s shoulders went rigid under his arm. “Oh no,” she said under her breath.
“What is it?” he asked, lowering his head in an effort to read her expression.
She averted her face. “Um, just a quick painting I did for myself. Not for anyone to see.” She raised her voice for Eric’s benefit. “Sure, I can draw you. Come over here in the light, and I’ll grab a fresh sheet of paper.”
“Uncle Paul, you look really good in her picture,” Eric said, as he trotted up to them. “Like you’re having fun.”
Julia blew out a breath and slid from under his arm. “You might as well see it.”
She went to the front room and came back with a square canvas in her hands, its back to him. “Close your eyes,” she said.
“Bend down and I’ll cover them,” Eric said gleefully.
Paul squatted obediently while his nephew came around behind him to put his palms over his eyes. “When was the last time you washed those grubby paws?” Paul asked.
“This morning after I peed.”
Paul groaned and heard a chuckle from Julia.
“Okay, Eric, let him look.”
His nephew removed his hands, and Paul straightened before taking in the painting now displayed on the easel in front of him.
It was himself, only not the way he was anymore. This was his old self, the one who felt free to go off on any adventure that beckoned. The one who flirted with women for the sheer fun of it. The one who bought a motorcycle because no one was relying on him to keep their life out of the crapper.
This was how Julia saw him. Either he had fooled her or she wanted to believe this was her lover. A lover and an adventurer rather than the embittered ex-mayor of a small town in the sticks.
Julia waited for Paul to say something, but he stood frozen, his expression blank. He must hate it, and he was stalling so he could think of something polite to say. “It’s just for me,” she repeated. “You don’t have to worry I’ll show it to anyone else.”
“Christ,” he said hoarsely. “I want you to show it to the world.”
She swung back to look at the painting. It was a pale, flat version of the man standing in front of it. “It’s just a quick study. The motorcycle needs a lot of filling in and the shoulders are not quite in proportion.”
“You’ve made me look”—he made a frustrated gesture as though he couldn’t come up with the right words—“ready to roar off into the sunset at a moment’s notice.”
“Aren’t you?” she asked, turning back to him to catch the flash of torment that contorted his mouth. She glanced down to see Eric watching his uncle with a question in his clear blue eyes. “He’s a swashbuckler, isn’t he, Eric?”
Paul’s gaze dropped to his nephew. She saw the effort it took him to turn his grimace into the semblance of a smile. “That’s me. King of the road.”
Relief washed over the child’s face. “Will you leave your hog to me in your will?”
Julia gasped, but Paul chuckled and ruffled Eric’s hair. “Motorcycles are dangerous. You can have my ’Vette. Now sit down and get your picture painted.”
“I’m going to just draw it for now,” Julia said, grabbing a pad and a pencil before she sat on a rickety wooden chair.
Eric
dragged a stool over from the counter and climbed up on it.
“Can you scoot around so you’re sideways?” Julia asked. “Now look at me.” She did a quick scan of the child’s face, working out proportions and angles, before her pencil began to move across the paper. In her peripheral vision, she saw Paul walk to the rear of the building to stand with his back to them as he stared out through the dirty glass to the weedy garden behind.
As she sketched, she tried to unravel his reaction. She’d expected amusement or a little smug preening, maybe even annoyance that she’d presumed to take his likeness without his permission. She had not anticipated the raw pain she’d seen in his eyes.
The last thing she wanted to do was stir up trouble since she knew she would be in hot water for riding Darkside. Not to mention what revelations her uncle might make.
She sighed as she blocked in the Corvette’s sleek lines and drew Eric’s elbow hanging out the open window. “You can move now. I’m just going to add some shading.”
Eric leaped off the stool and came around to peer over her shoulder. “Cool! Uncle Paul, look! She made me the driver.”
The little boy raced over to grab his uncle’s hand and pull him back to Julia. As they approached, she looked up to gauge Paul’s emotional barometer. The pain was gone, but he moved as though it took every ounce of his will to make the effort. She reversed the sketchpad and held it up for him to see.
“That’s the mighty power of the artist,” Paul said. “She can make dreams look real.”
“Eric will be in the driver’s seat before you know it.”
She decided this might be a good time to bring up her afternoon’s adventure. Paul couldn’t yell at her too much in front of Eric, and he might get over some of his anger before they were alone. Of course, he might be angrier at her for setting a bad example for his nephew. She was damned if she did and damned if she didn’t. “Speaking of being in the driver’s seat, I have some great news.”
Two expectant male faces turned toward her and she was struck by the sense that she was seeing the same person at two different ages.
“I went riding this afternoon.”
Eric was unimpressed since he didn’t know about her past, but he said a polite, “Cool.”
Country Roads Page 22
