From the side, he saw the crinkle of her nose. The same little crinkle that had appeared when he'd shown the horse's teeth.
"She's not going to nibble on you. Promise."
Jess held her hand out in front of her body. He was surprised when Josh's small hand appeared right next to hers.
Patches lowered her head slightly to sniff them both, her breaths coming in whuffs that he knew from experience tickled.
Josh giggled.
Jess looked up at Luke. Her surprised, joyous gaze made him feel about ten feet tall.
Patches took one step forward, and Jess instinctively stepped back, leaving Luke at Josh's side. The horse lowered her head even more and gently nudged the boy's stomach with her nose. She made a blowing noise.
He couldn't have asked for a better response.
Luke squatted next to the boy, ready to snake an arm out behind Josh if Patches got frisky and knocked him over. But she just nudged him gently and blew again.
"She's asking you to be her friend," Luke said. "Why don't you pet her, right here?" He showed Josh how to scratch beneath her forelock. Then he let the kid take over.
Josh was so intentional about it, scratching exactly how Luke had shown him and watching the horse closely.
She whickered softly, and for the first time, Josh looked directly into Luke's face, his eyes asking a question.
"It means she likes you," Luke said.
Josh looked back at the horse, his small hands still touching her nose. "I like her too." His words were clear and confident in the quiet barn.
So was Jess's soft gasp.
Luke looked over his shoulder to find her smiling a tremulous smile, tears standing in her eyes.
Either he'd done real good, or real bad.
#
Jess waved as Josh's mother drove her sedan down Shirley Starr's gravel drive. This was the last period of the day, and Josh had had an appointment in town, so his mom had opted to pick him up from the ranch.
Mrs. Phillips had been hesitantly optimistic after Jess had told her about Josh speaking—speaking!—to the horse. Jess knew that it was hard to be excited about progress when dealing with a kid on the spectrum, because often it could be one step forward and two steps back.
But Jess's gut reaction to come back here to spend time with the horses had been right. And she believed that more time spent with Patches could help Josh open up even more.
It had worked. Her idea had worked.
A butterfly fluttered past, a reminder of how she'd come to be here in the first place. As if God had ordained the science class visit.
She had her hands clasped together and barely restrained a squeal as she twirled around in a circle.
And found a very amused cowboy standing between her and her car.
"Nice happy dance," he said.
She forced herself to unclench her hands, wiping her suddenly-sweaty palms down her thighs.
Even his teasing couldn't quash the joy streaking through her. "It was a very tame happy dance," she said.
The corner of his lips quirked up. "I'd like to see the full version, then."
"That, I reserve for when I'm home alone."
"Pity."
She found herself smiling at him, when normally this kind of banter was far, far out of her realm of possibility. Was it simply the fact that things had worked out with Josh that had scattered her usual shyness?
"Thank you for what you did today. He was already reading the book you gave him before his mom pulled out of the drive. And he spoke!"
Luke shrugged and looked off in the distance. "I didn't do anything special."
She shook her head, not willing to let him downplay his actions today. "You treated him like a person—"
"He is a person," he said quietly, but she kept going.
"—and you let him meet Patches. It might not seem like a lot to you, but you've probably changed his life."
Now he squinted at her, his eyes slits beneath the Stetson that shaded his face. His skepticism was as heavy as the humidity in the air between them.
"I'm not joking," she said. "Do you know that I've had him in my classroom for eighteen months, and he's never once spoken to me?"
"He talked to Patches," he argued. "Not to me."
"You made it happen." A beat passed. "If we can show his parents that being around horses improves his communication skills, they might be willing to invest in real therapy for him. It could change everything."
He squinted at her again. "Then I figure you owe me."
She owed him?
Before she could even guess what he meant, he smiled at her. The first real smile she'd seen cross his face. And it was devastating. He had dimples!
"Go out with me tomorrow night."
What?
Something fluttery lodged in her throat.
Her hesitation made his smile slip. "If you're not busy. You busy?"
She shook her head slightly, still attempting to swallow the ball of nerves that blocked her from speaking.
His smile widened again, making him look like a movie star, not a cowboy at all. "Then you'll go out with me?"
And she managed a shaky, "Okay."
Chapter Four
Luke was the king of taking stupid risks, but this one might take the cake. A date. With Jess Sadler.
Two days ago when he'd asked her out, he'd been enthralled by her smile and effervescence. He'd wanted that instead of the gaping hole his guilt was eating in him, had eaten at him even through the distraction of Josh's visit.
He stuck his head in the living room, where Gramma was watching Wheel of Fortune from her recliner, a half-finished afghan resting across her lap, and a crochet hook moving faster than he could track.
"I'm going out," he said. "You need anything?"
She turned her head slowly. She was as sharp as ever—Dusty and Dan had told him so—which meant a look like that could only spell trouble. With a capital T.
"As a matter of fact, I've been needing to talk to you." She didn't add the boy onto the end of her sentence. She didn't have to.
"Maybe we can find some time tomorrow. Do you need some more sweet tea or popcorn or something?"
She ignored his offer completely. "Or maybe you'll keep finding ways to piddle around out in the barn." She leveled the crochet hook at him. "You can't avoid me forever."
He didn't have to. Just ten more days, and he was out of there.
He rushed out to his pickup.
On the ride to Jess's address in town, he gave himself a pep talk. Keep it platonic. Just friends.
But what made his stomach clench was remembering the light shining from her eyes. The way she'd looked at him, like he was a hero. Nobody else looked at him like that, 'cept maybe a bull rider after Luke'd saved his bacon in a particularly close call in the arena.
And then it was too late for second thoughts. He pulled down a street lined with cute little bungalows, not far from the elementary school. In high school, two of his friends had lived right down there…
He parked in the street behind her car and got out. A curtain twitched, and he got a kick out of the thought she might be watching for him. No backing out now.
He meandered up the walk and knocked on her door.
She was barefoot when she answered, her jeans accentuating great legs. She wore a T-shirt and had her hair in a ponytail, but her head was bent as she worked on one of her earrings. Fastening or unfastening?
"Come in for a minute. I've been running behind all day, ever since Josh had a meltdown in fifth period."
He shouldn't. But he stepped over the threshold and shut the door behind him.
"Does that happen a lot?" he asked.
"Enough."
She was already disappearing into a short hallway past the living room. He could see a kitchen in the opposite direction and, behind the living space, a small breakfast nook.
Her couch was decorated with cutesy colored pillows, and the place smelled like froufrou candles.
She didn't have a TV. The wall where it would've been natural to put it was covered in a floor-to-ceiling bookcase. The wall adjacent was decorated with a photo collage, and he found himself wandering closer to examine it.
He could hear her rustling around and talking—to herself?—somewhere further in the house and found himself smiling as he perused the photos. Jess and what must have been her parents, with her decked out in a graduation cap and gown. Jess pointing at the Pecan Elementary "first day of school" sign with a huge grin on her face. Many of the pictures showed Jess and another girl doing typical childhood activities. Visiting the zoo. Playing tag. Playing Monopoly.
But the girl…the girl with Jess in all the pictures was…different.
#
Jess stared at herself in her bedroom mirror.
"Just don't be yourself," she told her reflection as she fastened the dangly butterfly earring to her earlobe. She'd wanted the reminder of how she'd met Luke. Even if it was hopeful thinking.
Earlier, as she'd rushed out of her closet-like office at the school, she'd had the passing thought that maybe she should've said no to the date. Could Luke's reputation from the accident rub off on her?
But he was the only guy who'd asked her out in the eighteen months she'd been in Pecan, Texas. And besides, didn't everyone deserve a second chance?
She'd been on maybe a dozen first dates during college and since. And all of them had been disastrous, mostly because she was so awkward at making small talk.
It was easy for her to put herself out there for Josh or another of her students. It was impossible to put herself out there... for herself.
Truth was, she was boring. She was passionate about her work. Spent extra hours researching ideas and reading case studies on occupational therapy. She liked to read novels. But she wasn't adventurous. Or interesting.
She was just... Jess.
How could she keep the cowboy's interest?
"Just…relax," she told herself.
But nerves overtook her, and she hesitated in the hallway, where the cowboy couldn't see her unless he turned around.
He stood with a loose-limbed, casual stance in front of her picture wall. What did he see there? Someone who spent more weekends with her sister than going on adventures?
She must've made some noise, because he turned, and that easy smile that had stunned her into agreeing to the date appeared again.
"Ready?"
She nodded, throat tight with nerves.
Outside, his truck was parked behind her car at the curb. The heat had lifted a bit today, meaning she didn't start sweating instantly upon stepping onto the stoop, but the short-lived relief didn't ease her pounding pulse.
Dusk was nearing, and likely it would continue to cool off as the evening lengthened.
Quiet descended as they walked side-by-side toward the truck.
He held the door for her and somehow, the silence seemed to grow.
She tried to breathe as she watched him round the front of the truck, but her chest continued to tighten up. She felt on the verge of a panic attack. Really?
She inhaled as deeply as she could as he opened his door.
He cranked the engine and nudged the truck into gear. "So, your pictures. Is that your...?"
"Sister. Mary."
She gulped a breath that had the dark edges of her vision receding. She could talk about Mary.
"I thought she might be. You have the same blue eyes. Is she older or younger than you?"
Once again, Luke surprised her. She might've expected him to ask about Mary's handicap first, but he hadn't.
"She's two years older."
He looked both ways as they approached a crossroads. "She likes animals?"
"She loves animals. Our parents' house was always a menagerie. I think at one time we had seven pets. Three dogs, two cats, a hamster, and a gecko."
He smiled, though he kept his focus on the road in front of them, and she found herself responding. And she realized that he'd picked the one subject that would allow her to relax immediately. Had he done it on purpose? He seemed incredibly intuitive, so she wouldn't put it past him.
"You should bring her out to the ranch sometime to see Patches. I'll be gone by then, but I'm sure Dusty wouldn't mind it if the two of you came out."
His reminder that he wasn't staying might've brought her up short, if she'd let herself forget. But she'd been thinking of the cowboy entirely too much, and reminding herself about his upcoming departure seemed to be the only defense she could come up with for keeping her heart distanced. She was already crushing way too much on him.
"Thanks. I might do that."
He slowed for a turn, looking over at her for an extended moment.
She pulled her focus away from the cowboy. She hadn't been paying attention to their surroundings, not really, too distracted by the man and her nerves. Wasn't this the same county road that would dump them out at his family's land?
"So I'm guessing she's the reason you're so passionate about your school kids."
It wasn't a question, not really, but his statement was obviously meant to spark conversation.
"Mary is...she's an amazing person. She has Down's, and some people can't see beyond that. When we were in elementary school, kids would bully her because she was different. They never even took the time to talk to her. If they had, they would've seen how sweet and kind and amazing she is."
She realized she'd probably said way more than he wanted to hear and snapped her mouth shut.
But he glanced over at her with that easy smile again, letting her know he didn't mind.
"So you made it your life's mission to stand up for kids who need it," he said.
She shrugged. "I guess. I don't really think of it like that. I like my sister. I like being around her. I like being around kids like Josh. They might be more of a challenge than other kids, but it doesn't bother me."
She liked puzzles. It made her feel incredible to find a piece that fit, like yesterday with Josh and Patches. It might take years to really reach a kid, but she was stubborn enough to keep at it.
She didn't know if she had enough time to figure out the puzzle that was the cowboy beside her.
He turned off the county road onto his grandma's property but slowed and put the truck in Park before they'd gone any farther than the cattle guard.
He turned toward her, raising one arm to rest along the back of the seat, fingers brushing her shoulder and sending sparks igniting down her spine. His other arm rested atop the steering wheel, his wrist dangling negligently.
But in the orange light as the sun began to set, she could read his tension. He'd only been playing at being relaxed. In reality, he was strung tightly. She could see the markers—the little lines of tension around his mouth and the flex in his fingers when he thought she wasn't watching.
And she was good at reading people. She had to be, when so much of her interaction with Josh, and other students like him, was non-verbal.
"I wasn't sure I should take you somewhere in town." His smile wasn't as real this time. "I'm not exactly the most popular person around here." This last was said with a self-deprecating grin.
"What do you mean?"
He hesitated. It was slight, but it was there. "I'm sure you've heard about what happened—why I left town." He shrugged. "I can't walk down the street without seeing someone that was broken by what happened."
The past stuck there between them, almost tangible.
What could she say? She wasn't so sure about his self-diagnosis. From what she'd heard in the teachers' lounge, most people in town didn't hold a grudge against him. But then, no one she'd talked to had been related to anyone involved. Lindsey nee-Lang might feel differently, although she was now married to Luke's brother, so how much of a grudge could she really hold against Luke?
Jess didn't have any good answers, so she settled for returning to the previous subject. "I'm up for anything."
He shot her a grateful look. "I noticed t
here's been some falling stars the past few nights. I looked it up online and turns out there's a meteor shower this month. So I thought we might do a cowboy picnic and sit out and watch the stars awhile."
He'd said all this while not quite meeting her eyes. And then all of a sudden, he did. "If you're not comfortable being out here with me alone, though, I'll take you back to town."
The crack in his casual cowboy veneer showed the true vulnerability beneath. That he cared about making sure she was comfortable dissolved the last of her nerves.
"I'd like to have a picnic with you," she said. She couldn't resist teasing him. "But it is a school night, so I'll probably fall asleep if we watch the stars for too long."
This time when he smiled, it was the real thing.
#
Luke drove the truck into the open pasture. Jess was a good sport, laughing as she clung to the overhead handle while they bounced over gopher holes and rutted ground. If they wanted a good view of the meteor shower, they'd need to be far enough away from the house and barn, so lights from both wouldn't interfere with their viewing.
And also he wanted less of a chance for Gramma to hike out and insert herself into his date.
He found a nice, flat spot in the open field and threw the truck in Park. "I think we're far enough from the creek that the mosquitos should leave us alone. If not, I brought bug spray."
She raised one eyebrow, maybe questioning his sense of romance.
Hey, mosquitos were a definite romance deterrent.
He jumped out of the truck and rounded the back, dropping the tailgate. His steps in the tall grass rustled up a couple of Monarchs that quickly flew off.
He hopped up into the bed of the truck to untie the supplies he'd stowed there earlier. Jess emerged from the truck, her shoulder coming even with his knee as she lifted something for him to see.
"This fell out of the truck when I opened the door. I think it was hiding beneath my seat...?"
It was too much to hope that the fading light would keep her from seeing what it was—a college textbook.
Heat rose up in his face, and she could probably see that too, even though he'd ducked and hoped his Stetson might hide his face.
The Butterfly Bride Page 3
