Sarah and the Single Dad

by Deanne Anders

  By the time they had arrived at the horse stables, though, David was sure he had made the right decision. He was taking what was surely just Davey’s safety too seriously. Being around the horses had brought more pleasure in his son’s life than he’d had in a long time and just watching his son’s eyes light up was worth falling off a horse a dozen times. At least that was what he had thought before Sarah had led out a horse much bigger than the one he’d seen the kids riding the last time he had been there.

  “It’s okay, Daddy, Mr. Jack says Sarah teaches kids all the time.”

  David looked down to where his son was gently patting his hand, something David had done to him countless times when Davey had been nervous about a procedure, and he smiled down at his son. How had he gotten so lucky to have been given this little boy?

  “Come on, Davey. Let’s go find someplace where we can watch your daddy,” Jack said as he took the boy’s hand and they walked out of the stable.

  “You do what Mr. Jack tells you, Davey. No running off,” David said as he watched them walk away.

  “He’ll be okay,” Sarah said, then turned back to the horse she had brought out for him.

  “This is Fancy,” Sarah said as she ran her hands over the horse, a movement that seemed to calm the horse. “She’s the queen of the farm right now, or at least she thinks so.”

  “I don’t know what makes her a queen, but she is certainly a beautiful horse,” David said as he walked up to where Sarah was standing and reached his hand out to touch the stately animal whose coat was solid brown except for her two front feet that were snowy white. Was she what they called a painted horse? He didn’t know anything about the different types of horses, something he planned to change by stopping at a bookstore on the way home.

  As his hand replaced Sarah’s on the horse’s neck, Fancy turned her head and looked down at him with a haughty glare that was surely meant to put him in his place.

  “I’m not sure she likes me,” David said as he slowly removed his hand.

  “She’s just trying to intimidate you,” Sarah said with a laugh. Looking over at her he was once more reminded of how comfortable she appeared here on the farm. It was like she shed her no-nonsense air along with the starched white medical coat she wore at work. Not that she was some stuffed shirt at work. He had been amazed by the way she interacted with the children at the hospital, but here, with the horses, it was like her whole body relaxed. She seemed to have an intimate relationship with each one and he found himself wondering more about her—how she got to be here. Had she always had a love of horses? Or had she married into this family and the horse life?

  “Fancy, this is David. He just wants to be your friend,” Sarah said as she moved back to the horse and started making some nonsense sounds that seemed to comfort the horse so that the horse stopped giving him the evil eye.

  Sarah took David by the hand and then dropped it quickly.

  “I’m sorry,” Sarah said, a sheepish smile tugged at her lips. “I’m just so used to working with kids.”

  “Don’t apologize,” David said. “Please, teach me just the way you would one of your kids. They probably know more about horses than I do right now.”

  “Okay, then,” she said as she took David’s hand and placed it under hers. “Every horse has their own way of wanting to be patted. Your job is to watch how the horse responds.

  “Fancy here thinks she’s above all that patting and scratching. She likes a smooth rub from here—” she placed his hand on the top of the horse’s neck “—to here,” she said as she brought both of their hands down the horse’s neck to where the saddle sat then moved it back up slowly, then down again. They stood there, close together, for what could have been only a minute with their hands joined together, neither talking as they comforted the horse, the only sound their breathing.

  As Sarah removed her hand from his, David took a deep breath he hadn’t known he needed. His body stirred with an arousal that surprised him. He hadn’t responded to the touch of a woman’s hand in he didn’t know how long.

  Okay, this was stupid. He’d asked Sarah to teach him as she would any of her other students, but that didn’t mean he had to act like some teenage boy with a crush on his pretty teacher. He wasn’t an inexperienced kid. He’d learned the hard way that you couldn’t let attraction override your brain. His whole relationship with Lisa had been built on physical attraction and look how that had ended. And he had even more to consider now. He had Davey.

  “Well, I think you’ll be okay with her now,” said Sarah as she stepped back away from him. What exactly had just happened between the two of them? Or had it just been him that had felt that spark of attraction?

  She handed him a rope she called the leads and he led the horse out into a small fenced area she referred to as a paddock. As Sarah went on to explain all the parts of the saddle and what their uses were, he wished he had made that stop at the bookstore sooner. He’d make a point to take the time to study before his next lesson.

  “Now that Fancy is a little more comfortable with you, I think that you should be safe to mount her,” Sarah said as she walked back up to the horse and took hold of the lead rope.

  “Safe?” he asked as he swallowed down the dread he had felt earlier that morning. He could already picture himself lying on his backside in the dirt with Sarah standing over him.

  “You’ll be perfectly safe,” Sarah said, then gave him a mischievous smile. “I’ve never lost a student yet.”

  David put his leg in the stirrup as she had shown him how to do earlier, then with a leap of faith born from the knowledge that Sarah knew what she was doing, he lifted his other leg over the horse.

  “Relax, David. Fancy can smell fear a mile away, relax your seat and take the reins,” Sarah said as she handed him the leather straps.

  As Sarah explained the use of the reins and the other parts of the bridle, both he and Fancy began to relax and by the end of the lesson he had managed to take the two of them in a circular walk around the yard with Fancy protesting only mildly.

  “You did great,” Sarah said as they led Fancy out to a bigger paddock.

  “Are you talking to me or the horse?” he asked. He felt a bit silly about his first reaction to the horse. He’d had a good time learning how to interact with the beautiful animal.

  And it hadn’t hurt that he’d had a beautiful teacher too.

  He thought of the feeling of her hand on his again. No, that didn’t mean a thing. It was strictly male appreciation for a lovely woman and no more.

  He looked over to where he’d last seen Davey standing on a small bench outside the paddock and froze.

  “Where’s Davey?” he asked, not trying to keep the panic out of his voice.

  “It’s okay. He’s with Jack. I saw them walk toward the house. I’m sure they’ll be back in just a minute,” Sarah said.

  He looked down the road where he knew the house had to be. How had Sarah seen Davey leave when he hadn’t?

  * * *

  “The lesson isn’t over, cowboy, till we put the tack up,” Sarah said, trying to get David’s attention back to the horse. She knew her father-in-law would never let anything happen to Davey. She hoped that David would know that too. She could see the time away from David was good for Davey and hanging out with Davey was good for Jack too. Not that she could blame David for being so cautious. She was the last person to judge David’s parenting. He had been through a lot with Davey and you could see what a wonderful job he was doing with the happy little boy.

  Sarah removed the saddle and bridle from Fancy then shut the paddock gate. She watched as the horse headed across the large yard to where a water trough waited for her. Looking over at the man standing beside her, she could see the same look of wonder she’d seen on most of her students after their first lesson. When it came to horses, the beauty and excitement they generated was eno
ugh to enchant all ages. Except it hadn’t been just David that had been enchanted, for that moment when they had been alone in the stable, their hands touching, their bodies so close, she’d felt as spellbound herself. She’d had to remind herself that she was there to teach David about horses, not flirt with her student. What had gotten into her? This was not how she allowed herself to respond to men. She was a mature widow who had lived without a man in her life for three years now. She had no business responding to one of her colleagues. She’d made sure to keep her distance during the lesson itself, but it still ate at her as David came to stand next to her to watch Fancy as she cantered off to the other side of the fenced yard.

  “Let me take that,” he said as he reached out for the horse tacking in her hands. As he took the saddle from her she was careful to make sure that she kept her hands away from his, and then she laughed at the ridiculousness of her reactions.

  “What?” he asked as he heaved the saddle up on his shoulder as they walked back toward the stable.

  “Nothing,” she said. She wasn’t about to explain how stupid she was acting. She was sure the man had seen more than his quota of women that had fallen all over him. She wasn’t going to give him any ideas that she was like those women. Because she wasn’t. She had just been being silly about something that she had done with plenty of her students, she just wasn’t used to having a man’s hands on hers, not anymore at least.

  The sight of Jack and Davey coming toward them with her late husband’s dog, Pepper, in tow swept away any thoughts she had left of her reaction to David. It was her reaction to Davey that was the problem she needed to concentrate on. Part of her wanted to scoop the little boy up in her arms and hold him close while another part warned her that becoming too involved with the little boy could only lead to heartache when he and his father left Houston after his father’s fellowship was complete. And always there was that question in the back of her mind that she found herself wanting to ask. The one question she had no business asking.

  Does my son’s heart beat in your chest?

  Of course she would never ask such a thing of the little boy, she couldn’t even come up with a way to approach the subject with David. No, it was best if she just treated this child as the adorable little boy that he was instead of asking herself all of these what if questions.

  “You two look like you’ve had fun,” she said to Jack and Davey.

  “This is Pepper, Daddy, he knows a lot of tricks,” Davey said as they all headed back into the stable. “Mr. Jack says it was his son’s dog, but his son isn’t here anymore because he died and went to heaven.”

  “I’m very sorry to hear that,” David said as he looked over to her and Jack. He rubbed his hand behind his neck and Sarah could see he was worried about her and Jack’s feelings with what could be an awkward conversation.

  Bending down she petted Pepper. Kolton had gotten the black lab while the two of them had still been in college. Though now more gray than black, the dog was still up for a game of fetch when she had the time.

  “I’m sure Kolton would be happy to know a little boy like you was playing with Pepper,” she said to Davey then gave the dog a last scratch behind its ear.

  “That’s what Mr. Jack said,” Davey said as he took up the petting of the dog.

  “Davey, would you like to help me put some of this tack up?” She held out her arms and showed him the equipment she was carrying. “Jack, can you show David what to do with that saddle?”

  As they put away Fancy’s equipment, Sarah listened to the little boy talk about the time he had spent with “Mr. Jack.” It was plain to see that Davey was enjoying the time he had spent on the farm and she was reminded of all those dreams she and Kolton had for their own son when they’d watched him running around the grounds of the farm. They’d planned to fill their house with children and had looked forward to sharing their love of horses with them. But those dreams had ended in just one second by a driver trying to make it through a yellow light. There wouldn’t be children filling her home or running around the farm now. That dream had died with her family. There would be no more children for Sarah. Even if she met a man she wanted to have a relationship with it would never be the same as she had with Kolton. And she would never risk having children again. She wouldn’t be able to live with the knowledge that she could lose them at any second. She wasn’t even sure what Jack would do with the farm once he was too old to keep it up.

  “And then Mr. Jack showed me all the trophies his son had won in the rodeo and he said some of them were yours, too,” Davey said as he turned toward her. Sarah blinked. She hadn’t thought about those old trophies in years.

  “What is that?” David asked as he and Jack joined them again. “You’ve won trophies?”

  “She was a champion barrel racer,” Jack said, smiling over at her with pride. “You’ve never seen anything like the way she could get her horse to respond to her.”

  “Really? I had no idea you had so many hidden talents,” David teased as he looked back over to her.

  “It was many years ago.” Heat flooded her face, “I haven’t raced since I finished college.”

  Her days of racing were long gone but after Kolton and Cody’s death, she had discovered the only place she felt like she was in control was on the back of her horse, far away from people where she could cry and scream and not have to worry about what other people thought of her.

  * * *

  By the time David and Davey had left the farm, Sarah was ready for a good long ride. The tension of being around the little boy and the pain and joy that it brought to see him enjoying himself around the horses had confused her. The thought of all her son would miss made her heart raw with emotion. But Davey’s laughter was like a bandage to her soul.

  When she and Sugar made it to the back pasture, she let the horse run. It wasn’t until they topped the hill that she realized where she had come. Looking down across the field she saw the large white stone and mortar house with its covered windows and locked doors. Hers and Kolton’s forever house where they had planned to raise Cody and later his brothers and sisters. Only now her forever family was gone and her dream home was as empty and lonely as she was herself.

  She dismounted the horse and sat down on the green grass. There should have been good memories there, memories of all the firsts they had experienced: Cody’s first words, first steps and the first night she and Kolton had spent the night making love in that big king size bed that he had insisted they buy. Had she let the pain of their loss steal all the good memories away from her?

  The field was full of the new growth of spring. The flowers around the front entrance that she had planted with Kolton would be starting to peak their heads out of their winter beds by now. Soon there would be scarlet sage and hummingbird mint filling the garden. They’d picked the white stone of the house so that the flowers would be showcased against the stark color. They’d spent hours planning everything in the house. It was the only one they’d ever planned to build and they hadn’t wanted to have any regrets.

  But now she did have regrets. Her life was full of them and she instinctively knew that if she didn’t share with David her suspicions as far as her son and his son were concerned that she would just be adding more regrets to her life. She didn’t want that for her or for David. She had to find a way to tell him before it was too late.

  * * *

  Sarah stopped in front of Breanna’s hospital room door. Inside she could hear someone crying. There were a lot of tears shared on the pediatric cardiac floor, some were happy, but there were a lot of sad tears too. While Sarah wanted to give her patient’s family their privacy, she had to see if there was anything she could do to help. She knocked on the door and entered to find the young mother she had met only the week before in a rocking chair crying while her little girl slept surrounded by tubes and machines. Maggie looked up at Sarah as she entered, her face stre
aked with tears that she was too tired to wipe away. Sarah had once been a young mother all alone waiting at the bedside of her child waiting to see if her son was going to wake up, too tired to hide the sight of her tears from others.

  “Hey, Maggie, I just wanted to check on you. Is there anything I can do to help?” Sarah said. “I know all of this is very scary, but I’ve spoken with the cardiologist and the cardiac surgeon and they say Breanna’s doing really well after her surgery.”

  Maggie looked from her child to Sarah. “I know she’s better. She’s so pink now, just like a normal baby, but she isn’t normal. She’s hooked up to all those tubes and I can’t even hold her except when the nurses are there to help. I don’t even think she knows who I am,” Maggie said as she started to cry again. “And I know I should be happy that she’s doing so much better, but I just can’t help it. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. John worked so hard on the nursery and we haven’t even been home since I went into labor. And now John’s left because he has to go back to work.”

  Sarah moved over to a chair beside Maggie where she sat hugging herself then wrapped her arms around the young woman. She didn’t have the answer to all of Maggie’s worries right now, but she could at least give her some company.

  “I know it’s hard going through all of this, especially now that John is gone, but we are here to help.”

  “I know,” Maggie said as she grabbed a tissue from a half-empty box. “Everyone’s been great. It’s just I never dreamed this would happen, you know? You always hear of things like this happening to other people, but you never think it could happen to you.”