Rodeo Daughter (Harlequin American Romance)

by Leigh Duncan

  The weekend had been just more of the same.

  “We pulled his mobile home around back. The neighbors aren’t happy about it, but they’re willing to look the other way. For now.”

  “No luck with the trailer parks?” Mitch asked.

  “The snowbirds arrived early this year.” An October freeze had moved through the Northeast, prompting many of Florida’s winter residents to get a jump on the season. Prices had risen accordingly. “He’s broke, and I’m having trouble finding an affordable spot.”

  “It’s only for another month. That’s something to be thankful for, right?”

  She wished.

  “More like three. His leg isn’t mending the way it should. He might need surgery.” She shrugged, determined to find a more cheerful subject. “Enough about him…”

  She switched her focus to the little girl who skipped along, holding Mitch’s hand. “Are you excited, Hailey?”

  Questions and endless chatter had filled Amanda’s car from the moment she’d strapped the child into her car seat until they arrived at the ranch. When Hailey had seen Mitch waiting for them, holding a shiny new riding helmet in little-girl pink, not even her seat belt could keep her from bouncing up and down. She’d flown from the vehicle the moment Amanda braked to a stop, and insisted on wearing the headgear immediately.

  “Can Daisy go really fast? Can she jump over the fence?”

  Amanda sent an amused glance toward Mitch. His lips had suddenly thinned. She couldn’t blame him for having second thoughts. There was always an element of risk in putting a little kid on a horse, even one as gentle as Daisy. But there’d be no solo rides for Hailey. No jumping, either. Not for a long time.

  Amanda eyed the active four-year-old. A very long time, she corrected. She reached for the child’s hand. “Do you remember everything I taught you?”

  They’d spent the last two Sundays getting ready for the big event.

  Hailey stuck a finger between her chin and the strap on her helmet. “Daisy’s my friend. I brush her. I give her carrots.” She beamed at her newfound knowledge. “I’m going to ride today, aren’t I?”

  Amanda nodded and squeezed the little girl’s shoulder.

  They reviewed the tack next, Amanda accepting “syrup” for stirrup and “bite” for bit. Reins were not “giddy-ups,” however, and she corrected the child while Hailey gave her helmet strap another tug.

  “Too tight, Daddy. It squooshes me.”

  Mitch patted the hard, plastic top. “If you’re going to ride, you have to wear it.”

  Amanda held her breath, waiting to see if Hailey would balk, hoping she wouldn’t. The riding helmet was nonnegotiable. The child couldn’t even enter the practice ring unless she agreed to wear it. When Hailey dropped her hand from the strap, Amanda put some extra wattage into her smile.

  “And what rule do you always follow?”

  “Always walk in front.” The girl looked up importantly. “Horses can’t see in back. They get scared.”

  “You’re doing good, Hailey. What else?” Amanda sent Mitch a quick, reassuring glance. When startled, most horses kicked, protecting themselves the only way they could. But she and Mitch would watch Hailey like hawks, making sure the little girl stayed far away from flying hooves.

  “Gentle, gentle.” She softly patted an imaginary horse.

  Despite the lessons, Amanda didn’t take any chances. Once they arrived at Daisy’s stall, she helped Hailey onto the step stool, holding tight to her shirt in case the horse made a sudden move. She watched closely while Hailey’s hand got lost in the brush made for an adult’s larger one.

  “Great job, sweetheart.” Under Mitch’s constant encouragement, Hailey stuck with the task of giving Daisy a kid-size grooming. “You get a gold star.”

  And an A for effort, if not for skill, Amanda silently added. She smoothed Daisy’s rumpled mane while the child hung the brush on a nearby hook. A few minutes later, after cinching Daisy’s saddle tight, Amanda and the docile mount followed Hailey and her dad into the riding pen.

  Mitch checked the strap on Hailey’s helmet for what seemed like the tenth time before he settled his daughter in the saddle. With Amanda at the lead, and her dad never straying more than a foot from her side, Hailey held the reins just the way she’d been shown. They walked in circles, staying close to the rail. Hailey kept up a constant flow of chatter.

  “You’re a good horse, Daisy. Isn’t she a good horse, Daddy? I like riding. Can you see me, Daddy? Are you watching, Miss Amanda? Do you see me?”

  But after three trips around the ring, Hailey grew bored with all the attention. She pushed at Mitch’s arm around her waist.

  “Let me do it, Daddy.”

  Amanda caught his questioning glance and sent Mitch a warning look. He might be Hailey’s father and a good horseman in his own right, but she was doubly responsible for the child’s safety—both for having arranged this riding lesson, and for being the court-appointed guardian whenever Hailey visited her dad. Amanda stepped into the bad cop role.

  “Not today, sweetheart.”

  “I can. I can do it myself. Let go.” Hailey slapped the reins and rocked in the saddle, urging the horse forward.

  Amanda tugged on the bridle strap. The move pulled Daisy’s head down and back. At the signal to stop, her immense hooves sank into the sand and her tail swished. She heaved a lip-fluttering breath of air.

  Insistent, Hailey flapped the reins again. “Let go, Daddy.” Her voice rose to a feverish squeal.

  Amanda patted the velvet nose, reassuring Daisy that everything was under control. But when the horse’s ears gave the barest twitch, she pinned Hailey with her best no-nonsense stare. “You need a lot of practice before you sit on a horse all by yourself.”

  “But I want to go fast!”

  It was one thing for Hailey to raise her voice. It was quite another for her to break the rules. When her feet pummeled Daisy’s sides, Amanda swept the startled child from the saddle and placed her firmly on the ground. Her resolute tone cut through the four-year-old’s litany of complaints.

  “Hailey, we talked about this. I said no kicking and I meant it. That’s it for today. No more riding.”

  Hailey tilted her face up, her expression turning saucy. Her little hands fisted at her waist.

  “No. You are not the boss of me,” she taunted.

  Amanda stood her ground when the child kicked, sending up a shower of dirt.

  “Daddy will get me my own horse. A fast one.”

  Seeing Hailey strike the demanding pose and hearing her issue the ridiculous statement would have been comical if Mitch had done anything other than kneel beside his daughter and embrace her. Daisy’s reins tight in her grasp, Amanda folded her arms across her chest. She wasted a who-does-she-think-she’s-kidding look on Mitch.

  “You might try telling her no, once in a while. It’s not a four-letter word, you know.”

  Amanda almost clamped a hand over her mouth, unable to believe she’d said the words she’d been thinking out loud. Who was she to tell Mitch how to raise his daughter? She wasn’t Hailey’s mom. She wasn’t anyone’s mom. She might be dangerously close to giving her heart to the man who clutched his angry toddler so protectively, but they’d deliberately steered clear of discussing their future. Or her role in Hailey’s upbringing.

  Not that, if Karen moved them to Miami, Amanda could have any chance of ever finding out what her role might be.

  Hands outstretched, she backed away. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m sorry.”

  For a moment, the usual sounds of the ranch faded. Somewhere in the background, leather creaked and metal jangled as the mare shook her head. Instinctively, Amanda slid her hand along the horse’s neck to grasp the bridle. She patted Daisy’s nose again, this time only vaguely aware of the soft blowing kisses, the brush of a silken mane while she waited for a rightfully angry Mitch to tell her she’d overstepped her bounds.

  A ripple sprea
d across the big man’s shoulders. Amanda’s focus narrowed as a second shiver followed the first, and then a third, before understanding broke through her fear that she’d said too much. Over Hailey’s shoulder, Mitch looked up at her, his face wreathed in smiles.

  Warmth and the glint of an emotion she’d never expected to see sparkled in his azure eyes. Her heart thudded as, suddenly, the idea of a future with Mitch didn’t seem as far-fetched as it once had. She pondered this new possibility while Mitch got to his feet.

  One of his arms encircled her shoulders, the other resting on Hailey’s helmet. His contagious laughter enveloped Amanda. Even Hailey quickly forgot her pique and joined in.

  The first to laugh, Mitch was also the first to recover. When his laughter died to the occasional hiccup, he wiped his eyes. He captured his little girl’s attention in a laserlike gaze.

  “Hailey, I love you more than you will ever know, but I will not buy you a horse.”

  Amanda saw Mitch struggle to suppress a fresh wave of chuckles, and knew if she continued to watch she’d erupt in giggles, too. She clamped a hand over her mouth and ducked her head.

  “It was wrong for you to kick Daisy,” Mitch continued. “You need to apologize to her. And to Miss Amanda.”

  In Mitch’s arms, a contrite Hailey petted Daisy’s wide neck, whispering how sorry she was. Whether the mare realized what all the fuss was about or not, Amanda didn’t know. But the sweetness of Hailey’s little arms around Daisy’s neck was so tempting that she was on the verge of letting Hailey sit in the saddle again when the cell phone in her back pocket buzzed.

  A quick look at the display sent her heart rate ratcheting upward. There were no good reasons her neighbor should call. And the bad ones all had something to do with her dad.

  Had he set the house on fire? Had he fallen and broken his other leg?

  Oh please, don’t let it be that.

  She put the phone to her ear. “Mrs. Carrington?”

  “Amanda, get home quick!” the older woman ordered. “There’s a party at your house. Things have gotten out of hand. The noise—it’s awful! If you don’t put a stop to it, I’ll have to call the police.”

  Well, at least her dad hadn’t burned down her house.

  Thankful for small favors, Amanda offered quick assurances that she was on her way. She didn’t have to tell Mitch that their afternoon had been cut short. He gave her a warm squeeze that sent a flood of longing and hope from her fingertips to her toes.

  Grabbing Daisy’s reins in one hand, he hefted Hailey onto his hip with the other. “Let’s go,” he said.

  Mitch was already jogging toward the barn by the time Amanda placed a tersely worded phone call to her father. Music blared through the earpiece as she threatened the man with bodily harm if whatever he had going on at her house hadn’t ended by the time she got there. She caught up with Mitch halfway to Daisy’s stall. Her boots sending tiny clouds of sand into the air, she trotted along beside him.

  “What about you-know-who?” Mitch asked, with a nod to the little girl who clung to his shoulder and laughed, enjoying this new game.

  Amanda bit her lip. Dropping Hailey off with Karen was not an option. Her client had mentioned a shopping foray to the outlet malls in Vero Beach.

  “She’ll have to come along, I guess,” Amanda said, though the solution was far from perfect. She had a feeling the next time she saw her father, there’d be fireworks. Her well of patience had already run dry, exhausted on one senseless errand after another. Throwing a party where the police might be involved crossed a line she couldn’t condone.

  Twenty minutes later, Amanda’s fingers coiled into tight fists as she studied the deep tire tracks that gouged the lawn she’d painstakingly planted the previous fall. The splintered posts and the rail that hung drunkenly from the front porch put tears in her eyes. She’d spent the better part of the summer sanding and painting the house. The repairs were sure to wreck her budget. As for her temper, that had already snapped, and she knew she’d been wrong to expose Hailey to such destruction.

  A different emotion stirred as she watched the little girl try to straighten the flattened blossoms of a hibiscus bush. Only this morning it had been part of a hedge lining the walkway to her front door.

  Amanda squatted beside the child. Carefully, she took the broken flowers from Hailey’s fingers. “It’s okay,” she murmured, despite her own tears.

  “Miss Amanda, don’t be sad.” Hailey’s little hands cupped her cheeks. The child peered at her, distress filling her pretty blue eyes. “We’ll get new ones.”

  Amanda blew out a calming breath. Okay, so the little girl could throw a hissy fit better than anyone she’d ever seen, but she did have her sweet moments. Moments that needed to be channeled and encouraged. And, with brand-new certainty, Amanda knew she wanted to be there to see that happen, to help shape the young woman Hailey was destined to become.

  Torn between the desire to read her dad the riot act and the need to comfort and protect the child in her arms, Amanda really had no choice. She chose Hailey. Turning to Mitch, she asked him for what she knew was a huge favor.

  “Could you talk to him, please, while I take her inside? She doesn’t need to see any of this.”

  Mitch didn’t hesitate. He spun in a half circle, then headed around the house to Tom’s trailer. He probably didn’t hear the thanks Amanda whispered to his retreating back. As for her unspoken I love you, he’d have to have been a psychic to acknowledge her thought.

  And for that, Amanda was grateful.

  * * *

  BRINGING ALL HIS legal prowess to bear wasn’t something Mitch offered to do for just anyone. But when a guy looked into the face of the woman he loved and saw shadows of fatigue and doubt in her eyes, it stirred an urge to protect and defend. He brushed dust and a few strands of horse hair from his T-shirt. He didn’t need the right clothes to set one cantankerous old fool on the path to redemption.

  Inside Tom’s mobile home, a saddle lay in one corner. It took up a fair amount of space in a living room the size of a postage stamp. Mitch sidestepped it, making quick work of the introductions while he crossed a worn carpet to a tiny kitchen. He leaned against a Formica counter littered with dirty dishes. From this position of strength and power, he turned his best glare on the man who sat, sputtering, on a lumpy sofa.

  Right away, Tom whined, “Dusty and the boys were only here for a couple of hours. I don’t see why Mandy had to get all riled up about it.”

  “I think it might’ve had something to do a neighbor threatening to call the police. Any idea what brought that on?”

  No wonder Amanda had seemed anxious and out of sorts ever since her father had landed on her doorstep. It hadn’t been enough for Tom to ruin her childhood. Now he seemed bent on destroying the life she’d built in Melbourne.

  The man in question blew out a breath. “’Cause I had a few friends in? If you ask me, calling the cops was a might overreactive.”

  No one had asked Tom, and as far as Mitch could tell, the man didn’t warrant an opinion.

  “Around here, neighbors watch out for one another. They notice when trucks start tearing up the lawn while the owner’s not home. I’m sure they were concerned for Amanda’s property.”

  “Shoot. T’weren’t like someone was breakin’ in. We wuz just havin’ us a good time.”

  A good time? What was his problem?

  Mitch kept his tone civil. “It never occurred to you to entertain your friends in your own place?” He let an all-encompassing gaze sweep the trailer Tom called home.

  The man on the couch scowled. “Didn’t make no sense to do that. She’s got more room.” His shoulders slumped. “An’ I might have wanted to show off a bit.”

  “You thought throwing a keg party was the best way to do that?” Mitch refused to let himself be taken in by Tom’s sympathetic grimace. Amanda had given her father a place to live when he had nowhere else to go. She deserved to be treated better, and Mitch swore he’d do
his best to make that happen.

  “Pshaw. T’weren’t no keg.” Tom waved a hand dismissively. “We just had a few beers and such. Trust me, her grass’ll grow back. Mandy’s makin’ a stink out of a hill of beans.”

  “That’s not the way she sees it.” Or him, either, for that matter. “You forgot to mention the porch she’ll have to fix, the plants she’ll have to replace, whatever else you broke.”

  “Al’right. Al’right.” Tom rooted around in his pockets. “Maybe I did let things get out of hand. I’ll tell her I’m…” he paused, drawing out the word “…sor-r-ry. I’ll pay for what got broke.” He pulled out a thick wad of bills, tossing what had to be thousands of dollars onto the coffee table. “Think that’ll cover it? We didn’t go inside. Stayed right there on the porch the whole time.”

  The move stole some of Mitch’s momentum. “You have money?”

  “That?” Tom pointed to the cash. “That’s nothin’. Why else do you think I been haulin’ my ass around the country, performin’ at every taco stand?” He laughed and threw his hands into the air. “There’s good money to be had out there, son. Real good.”

  Brushing back hair that had fallen onto his forehead, Mitch stared at the fifties and hundreds the man had so carelessly tossed down.

  “You know my daughter well, do you?”

  He looked up to see Tom eyeing him slyly. Mitch drew himself erect, his shoulders squaring. “We met fifteen years ago at rodeo camp.” He paused, wondering if Amanda’s dad would even remember the summer he hadn’t sent so much as a postcard to his daughter.

  Tom only shook his head, a faraway look clouding his eyes. “Things were tough that year. I lost my wife in a car accident earlier in the spring. I pretty much don’t remember anything else for a while.” He ran his hand up and down the smooth edges of the crutch perched beside him on the couch. “You should’a seen her on a horse. No one could ride better than Mandy’s mom. She looks just like her, y’know. Sometimes I can’t hardly look at the girl without thinking about Roseanne.”