by Maggie Way
“Thanks. You must have too, given your sister’s condition.”
“How do you know so much about bi-polar disorder?” he asked. Maybe it was personal for Maddie, but one thing Darren knew was he couldn’t put himself in the middle of a situation like that again. He hadn’t been able to help his sister, so he was sure he wouldn’t be able to help anyone else. If Maddie was, well, he didn’t even want to think about it, but if she was, he’d have to walk away from her. It shouldn’t be hard, since things hadn’t even gotten started yet, but Darren didn’t believe that for a second. He already felt a connection to this woman and he was desperate to pursue it.
“It’s my job,” she said, offering him a warm smile. “I’m a psychotherapist. I have a private practice here in Lilac Ridge.”
“Psychotherapist?” The relief was only momentary as curiosity took hold. Lilac Ridge was a small town. How many therapists were as interested in horses as Maddie? “Do you know anything about equine assisted therapy?” he asked.
She smiled again. “Clarissa didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?” He already knew the answer, but he wanted to hear Maddie say it.
“She told you about the center. Asked if you knew a horse specialist who might be interested in partnering with us.”
It all made sense, Maddie’s intuitive nature, how natural she was with the horses. “Clarissa didn’t mention your name. So your plan for Chocolate is to use her for therapy?”
Maddie shook her head. “My interest in Chocolate is personal, but that doesn’t mean she won’t be an option for clients. I have to get to know her better before I can make that determination.”
“I hear a but in there,” he said.
“Did you know that horses not only feel our stress, but take it on? I’ve spent some time with her, just the two of us, and she’s a very happy girl. The other day, when you were here, I noticed a shift in her. I can sense it today, too.”
“A shift?”
“She’s melancholy. I have no doubt she remembers you, and your sister. Chocolate seems to be a sensitive girl. If that’s the case, she might take on too much from clients. Therapy horses are meant to help identify the root of person’s issues. They aren’t meant to be the primary therapists. It’s not fair for us to put our own burdens on the horse, especially if the horse has no means to relieve that stress.”
Was she saying that just to get him to back off? He didn’t want to think she was manipulative like that, but he didn’t know this woman. He wanted to, but she’d turned him down cold when he’d asked her to dinner. He thought he’d read interest, even attraction, but what the hell did Darren know about women? His relationships had all been fleeting. His sister had always been his priority and the women he dated didn’t like being second in his life.
But now Tawny was gone and Darren was ready to put his needs first and what he needed was a woman — a strong, independent woman — to share his life with.
“If she’s melancholy, it’s because she’s stuck in this stable. Let’s take her out. I’m sure Cooper wouldn’t mind if we took one of the other horses, too.”
“I rode here,” Maddie said. She was dressed for it, but he figured she’d come to ride Chocolate.
They worked together to brush Chocolate and get her tacked up. Maddie led the way out of the stable, with Darren leading Chocolate. Upon leaving the barn, he squinted under the morning sunshine, but when his eyes adjusted, they widened at the sight of her horse.
“You have a stud?” He was beautiful and seemed huge next to Maddie who was at best five foot three.
“This is Sergeant Matty. I named him after my brother, but his personality is more like me.”
“Wild and carefree?” Darren asked, remembering their conversation from the other day.
“Something like that,” she laughed.
“Isn’t it a little risky, bringing a stud to a place like this?”
“I checked with Cooper first to make sure none of the mares were in heat. He doesn’t spook easily, so I don’t have problems with him on the trails.”
Darren had worked with a few studs in his day. He’d never trust one on a trail ride. They served one purpose and it didn’t involve a saddle.
Chocolate whinnied and Sergeant Matty snorted, as though they were greeting each other. Then Maddie mounted the large horse with the ease of a professional rider.
“I get that a lot,” she said, smiling at Darren.
He shook his head. “Get what?”
“That look, surprise, shock, whatever you want to call it. You don’t have to be a big person to handle a big horse.”
“I suppose not,” he conceded. You only had to be strong, mentally more than physically, though the latter helped. He’d seen her work out often enough to know she was physically strong. He’d also seen the determination on her face at the gym, which proved she was mentally strong too.
They walked side by side, the horses keeping pace as if they were old friends. “What do you think? She seem happy to you?”
“I suppose she does. I bet you’re not thinking about your sister, though.”
She was right about that. He was thinking about Maddie, her easy smile, how comfortable and confident she was astride her horse.
“I asked you to dinner the other day. You ran off without an explanation.”
She looked at him them, her smile still bright. “I told you I was busy. That’s explanation enough.”
“Not for me. Have dinner with me tonight.”
“Sunday is family night. I have dinner with my parents.”
“Tomorrow night, then,” he offered.
Maddie brought her horse to a halt, and Darren did the same. She turned, still smiling, but not the friendly, easy smile he liked. This one seemed forced.
“Let me be upfront,” she said, a sternness in her voice he hadn’t heard before. “I have an unhealthy tendency to gravitate toward men who want to fix me. Until I can get that under control, I’m not dating. It’s nothing personal.”
She turned then, gave her horse a command, and they sprinted across the field toward the trail opening in the woods.
Honesty was good. Honesty scared men off. Maddie knew that from experience. The therapist in her knew honesty was a self-sabotage mechanism, but her wild side believed honesty was the best policy. If a man couldn’t handle her openness, he didn’t deserve her affection. Honesty was why most of her relationships didn’t last long. It seemed like a good enough tactic to use with Darren. If she could just scare him off, she wouldn’t have to keep running away.
When she and Sergeant Matty reached the woods, she brought him to a trot for their own safety even though her instincts screamed to keep sprinting.
They weren’t a hundred yards into the woods when she heard Darren and Chocolate come up behind them.
“Maddie,” he pleaded.
He was persistent. She had to give him that.
She brought Sergeant Matty to a halt and let Darren and Chocolate come up beside them.
“I’m not trying to fix you. From what I know, there’s nothing to fix.”
Whether his comment was genuine or just flattery, Maddie couldn’t be sure, but her instincts told her everything about Darren was genuine. He’d told her about his sister, after all, and that couldn’t have been easy.
“There’s plenty to fix,” she replied. That’s why she was going to the gym. That’s why she wanted to buy Chocolate.
“Maddie,” he pleaded again. “Just have dinner with me. Or lunch. Lunch is safe, right? We can even make it a business lunch, talk about the therapy center.”
“Clarissa said you had someone in mind, someone who might want to partner with us?” She’d be willing to have lunch with him to discuss that.
“I do. Have lunch with me and we can talk about it.”
Maddie recognized it for the trap it was, but the part of her that wanted to have lunch with Darren, to be alone with him, was so much stronger than the part of her that knew she sh
ouldn’t indulge.
If it was a business lunch, however, she could bring Clarissa along. She was more knowledgeable about and confident with the financial side of things. Whenever their real estate agent started talking mortgages and escrow and blah blah blah, Maddie’s head started spinning. She wouldn’t admit to Clarissa that she often shut off her brain and let it wander. She usually ended up daydreaming about riding, being in an open field with Sergeant Matty and just throwing caution to the wind.
Maddie stroked the horse’s neck, letting the softness of his mane soothe her. Lunch wasn’t a big deal. It was just food and she could pick the place. She didn’t want to end up at one of the Italian restaurants in town, surrounded and tempted by all those carbs.
God she loved pasta. She missed pasta. And chocolate. Oh, how she missed chocolate.
“Lunch?” Darren asked, pushing her for an answer.
“Fine. We can have lunch, but it’s not a date. It’s to talk about the center and whomever it is you think might be interested in partnering with us.” Maddie still had to fix her issues and she couldn’t let a man get in the way of that.
Darren’s smile held a hint of mischief that might have made Maddie regret agreeing to lunch if it didn’t make him look so damn sexy.
Instead of regret she was dealing with arousal. Perfect.
“About Chocolate,” she said, changing the subject to something that was sure to dump cold water on her hot thoughts. “I understand why you want her, and yes, she doesn’t seem so somber out here like this, but I can offer her a home where she isn’t reminded of whatever it is she went through with your sister.”
“Everyone heals with time,” he insisted, scratching Chocolate’s neck. “I’m sure she will too. Just think about it. We can talk more at lunch. Tomorrow at noon? Green’s on the Park?”
Green’s on the Park was a cute little restaurant that specialized in salads, soups, and low carb sandwiches.
“I have clients all day,” which was mostly the truth. She gave herself 90 minutes for lunch, but Mondays were pure craziness for Clarissa. Since Maddie was determined to make this a business lunch, she wanted to ensure Clarissa was there and they had a standing lunch date every Wednesday. “Wednesday works better for me.”
“Wednesday then. I’ll see you at noon.” Still smiling, Darren turned Chocolate on the trail and headed back the way they’d come. Maddie continued down the path toward the ATV trail.
Chapter Six
Sometimes the best therapy in the world was as simple as shoveling shit.
Maddie had never minded mucking out the stalls, not even when she was a kid and had to learn the basics.
As an adult, it helped her regain focus. It was also a good workout. That’s why she was skipping the gym today.
“Madeleine?” her dad asked as he came into the barn, shotgun in hand. “For flippin’ sake. What the hell are you doing in here?”
“Morning, Dad. I’m mucking out the stalls.”
“At five in the damned morning? Isn’t today a gym day?” He unloaded the gun and set it in the rack next to the door.
Her dad mucked the stalls three mornings a week so Maddie could get to the gym. He often helped her and Clarissa with the afternoon cleanings too. Maddie suspected he liked the alone time, or maybe he was just bored since retiring.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she said, scooping up a big pile and dumping it in the bucket.
“You set off the alarm,” he said, grabbing the other fork. “I didn’t know who the hell was out here.”
Maddie had tossed and turned all night thinking about Darren. She gave up at quarter past four and decided to run … straight to the barn. “Sorry, Dad. It’s early. I forgot about the alarm.”
He grunted, obviously not impressed about being woken up, but Hank Carson was a reluctant morning person. Once he was awake, there was no going back to sleep.
Maddie had put the horses out in the paddock. Even though Sergeant Matty was somewhat new to the herd, Crystal and Cleo loved frolicking in their small area with him.
As she and her dad worked in adjacent stalls, Maddie in Sergeant Matty’s and Hank in Cleo’s, their forks scraping on the concrete had a rhythmic beat. “You have clients today?” Dad asked.
“One. My morning client canceled.” Maddie wasn’t a fan of clients canceling their appointments. Sometimes they had valid reasons, and she respected that, but this particular client habitually canceled. In fact, she canceled more than she showed up. That’s why Maddie had started scheduling her as either the first or last appointment of the day. The bigger problem, though, was having only one client today. If she wasn’t seeing clients, she wasn’t making money. She really needed to get the equine assisted therapy center up and running.
“Is that what has you up so early? Worry for your client?”
Her dad was unpredictable. Sometimes he pried for information when something was bothering her, sometimes he didn’t. This early in the morning it surprised her. He was a morning person, even though he wouldn’t admit to it, but he wasn’t much of a talker before he’d had his coffee.
“No, I just couldn’t sleep.”
He grunted again. “You were always a good sleeper, from the moment you were born. You weren’t a month old yet when you were sleeping through the night. Your mother thought something was wrong with you, but the doctor told us to count our blessings. Since your brother was up every two hours, it was a blessing.”
Maddie chuckled. She loved “twin” stories and her dad loved to tell them.
“You were the morning babe, though. Five A.M., on the dot every day. Even as a teen. That seemed to be the time your brother would settle in. For twins, you two never shared sleeping patterns.”
Matt was a night owl. As teens, he’d stay up until dawn, then sleep all day, or at least as long as Dad would let him, sometime around lunch.
“I’m not sure how he’s survived army life for so long,” Maddie chuckled. “I can’t imagine they let him sleep all day.”
She missed her brother so much her chest ached. He didn’t come home often, even when he wasn’t deployed. She was lucky if she got to see him every couple years. She suspected he didn’t come home because of Clarissa. While their break-up had been mutual and friendly, she knew they were both devastated by it. Maddie had never understood why they had broken up. It seemed ridiculous that they couldn’t find some sort of compromise. Matt wanted to serve, so he was at the army’s mercy as far as his location was concerned. Clarissa wanted to live here in Lilac Ridge. Maddie had thought the two loved each other enough to find a way to make it work, but maybe that was just wishful thinking on her part.
“We got an email from him. It was short, he said everything’s good.”
She’d gotten the same email. On the phone, Matt was a talker. Even though it was her job to listen, Maddie was a talker by nature, but Matt never seemed to let her get a word in. When he was deployed, he couldn’t call often and when he could, the calls were short.
Maddie sifted through the bedding, tossing anything that was wet in the bucket and brushing the clean, dry bedding aside. Sergeant Matty was a tidy horse. He didn’t tend to leave any surprises under his bedding. Cleo, though, she was a different story.
“You going to tell me why you couldn’t sleep? I know something’s up. You may as well talk, otherwise your mother is going to hound me all day and then she’s going to hound you. You can fess up now and save us both being nagged.”
“A guy asked me out,” she admitted. She’d always been open with her parents. Maybe it was her therapist nature or maybe that’s why she’d become a therapist. She was close with her parents, luckier than a lot of people she knew. She didn’t just love them because they brought her into the world and raised her, but she liked them too.
“That’s good right? All your hard work is paying off.”
Except she wasn’t working hard to get a date. Even being overweight, she hadn’t had any trouble getting a date. Quality, however,
was much more important than quantity, and until she could trust herself not to fall for the wrong kind of guy again, she was taking a break.
“I’m not interested in dating right now,” she told her dad.
He laughed. “Yeah, that’s the way it goes, though, isn’t it. When you’re not looking for something, whoomp, there it is.”
Maddie held the pitchfork, leaning on it a bit as she looked at her dad. “Did you just sing hip-hop?”
“What? It’s a classic,” he said, doing a little hip-hop dance move that made him look like a crazy man. Maddie nearly fell over laughing.
“But you’re digressing, or some other fancy therapist term. Why aren’t you interested in dating? I mean, come on Mads, you’re not getting any younger. You’ve got the clock ticking and all that.”
“Dad!” she squealed.
“What? I’m just trying to be encouraging.”
Oh, good heavens, her dad needed a hobby. “Everyone wants to be a comedian,” she chuckled.
She supposed she should tell him about Chocolate, and about needing a partner, but she didn’t want to put her financial burden on her parents. They were good people, always supportive, and she knew they’d offer the money, if not force it on her. Maddie didn’t want to take away from their savings. They’d earned their retirement, and she wanted them to enjoy it.
“I’m spending too much time with your mother and her shows. I love that woman, I really do, but daytime TV is not my cup of tea. Hell, I don’t even like tea, but I drink a cup every afternoon during Ellen.”
“Have you thought about a part time job or maybe volunteering?” Hank wasn’t one to sit idle. Maddie was surprised he’d gone this long without finding something consistent to fill his time.
“More than thought about it. I went down to Ridge View Riding Center, asked the new owner about helping out around the place. Figured it’d keep me busy until you girls get your center up and running.”
Ridge View Riding Center. Darren’s place. Maddie just couldn’t get away from the man.
