“Of course,” Amanda said, then muttered, “Jawohl, mein Kommandant,” under her breath. Despite himself, he smiled. She jogged through the sliding glass doors and emerged moments later with a wheelchair. Grady eased Solstice into it.
“Park the car,” he said, then added, “please.” He threw her the keys. She caught them in midair while she stared at him. Impressive.
In the emergency room, Grady sat next to his daughter and filled out forms while Solstice sat with her foot propped on a chair. The triage nurse told them there would be a short wait. The only other patient, a teenage boy, got priority. Blond and pale, the chubby boy stared at his hand, which was wrapped in a towel. In his ever-vigilant peripheral vision, Grady noted the parade of female hospital workers who strolled through the ER, some looking at him while pretending not to, some openly gawking.
“Have you ever broken your ankle?” Solstice asked Amanda.
“Nope.”
“Can I ride if it’s broken?”
“Don’t think so,” she said with a smile. “But we’ll ask.”
“It sucks.”
“Don’t rate it on the suck-o-meter until we find out what’s wrong.”
Grady took the forms to the registration desk where the plump, middle-aged nurse recognized him. He smiled, chatted her up, gave her an autograph, and posed for a picture with her, after which she blushed and assured him Solstice would be seen as soon as possible. He didn’t usually use his celebrity for perks, but he’d do it for this.
He returned to Solstice and sat. The air was a touch too cool, as though they had amped up the air-conditioning, and smelled like antiseptic and the ghost of burned coffee.
Amanda was talking to Solstice. “You’re going to have an amazing seat by the time I’m done with you. You’ll be able to stay on a bucking bronc. Bareback. You’re going to do a whole lotta posting without stirrups, so we don’t stress your ankle. Won’t that be fun?”
“Posting trot without stirrups!” Solstice said, and groaned.
“She doesn’t have to do anything she doesn’t want to,” Grady said, even though he wasn’t entirely sure what posting the trot with no stirrups entailed. He knew his edict was childish, but he resented Amanda monopolizing his daughter. Solstice was injured, he was her father, she should rely on him and not on some riding instructor she’d only known since May.
“Dad, really, it’s okay. Riding without stirrups is really good for you. It’s what they do at the Spanish Riding School in Vienna.”
“Well at the Brunswick Riding School in Aspen, you don’t have to.”
“I kinda do. It’s how you get an independent seat.” At that, Amanda raised her eyebrows at Grady. Which annoyed him.
Ten minutes later the big double doors at the entrance to the hallway opened and a petite, scrubs-clad woman with salt-and-pepper hair shorn in a no-nonsense pixie appeared, holding a clipboard.
“Solstice?” she called out. Grady stood up. The woman pushed a wheelchair to Solstice, helped the girl into the chair, and began to wheel her toward the doors.
“We’ll be back,” Grady told Amanda.
“Dad, can she come, too?”
Damn. He couldn’t think of a good argument to keep Amanda in place. Displeasure flooded his voice as he said, “All right.”
In the examining room, Solstice sat on the padded table and Grady and Amanda stood across the small room from each other. Grady and Solstice took turns telling the physician’s assistant about the accident as the PA gently removed Solstice’s sock and sneaker.
“The swelling isn’t bad,” the woman said. “It’s fortunate your mom and dad got you here so fast.”
“She’s not—” Grady said, his words wrestling with Amanda’s “He’s not—” in the air between them.
“We’re not married,” he said.
“No, absolutely not married,” she said.
“Couldn’t be more not married. Completely single.”
“Or dating. Not dating either,” she said. “I’m a . . .”
“She’s actually just our . . . ” he said.
“Friend,” Solstice said.
They stared at the slender girl.
Grady was thunderstruck. What a sweet, simple . . . awful clarification. Amanda was their riding instructor, period. An employee. In an earlier century she would have been a servant. Oh, sure, okay, maybe, maybe, when his blood sugar was low or the altitude was affecting him he had momentarily thought of her as more than an employee, but that was completely different; they were adults, and if they began a relationship, it would be casual, physical, and would end the moment she left the property, or sooner. But he would never act on this ridiculous idea—he had just defeated one paternity suit and didn’t need another. Although, truthfully, he knew Amanda wasn’t that kind of person; he was worried, stressed, and the suit had made him paranoid. Still, Solstice’s notion was nonsense and he would nip it in the bud. He was glad his daughters enjoyed riding, but that was as far as it went. Amanda was not their friend.
After examining her and taking X-rays, the PA announced that Solstice had sprained her ankle. The woman wrapped the ankle and told Solstice she should be fine within a month.
Back at the house, after Grady had settled Solstice at the kitchen counter and set Harris to feeding her, Grady turned to Amanda. “I need to speak to you.”
“I have to feed the horses.”
She had to have the last word. She couldn’t be available right now. But he knew she had to do her job and that he was being unreasonable, but some of the adrenaline he’d felt earlier resurfaced as anger. And although he made it a point to be polite to those who worked for him, he was surprised when someone on his payroll didn’t jump to do his bidding. Keeping his voice level, he said, “Call Jacqueline when you’re done.” And walked away.
Almost an hour later, as Amanda was mucking out the stalls with a plastic manure fork, Jacqueline called.
“Grady wants to know if you like ice cream.”
“What? Sure. Why?”
“He wants to go to the ice cream parlor. Are you almost ready?”
“Uh, fifteen minutes.”
“He’ll be expecting you. Come to the house when you are done.”
She hung up. Jacqueline didn’t say good-bye all that often, which always made Amanda wonder if there was a problem or if Grady’s assistant simply didn’t like her.
Ice cream? She showered and changed into jeans and a red cotton sweater. She had finally figured out how to dress for mountain summer evenings, when the temperature dropped more precipitously than it would ever dare to in Ocala.
“Why ice cream? Are you pregnant?” Amanda asked as she buckled her seat belt in Grady’s BMW SUV.
Grady smiled. “I like ice cream. It’s been quite a day. And if memory serves, I promised to take you out for ice cream sometime.”
“I’m sure Harris can handle sundaes. Hell, I can make them.”
“Yes. But that’s not taking you out.”
She looked at him with her mouth open. “Out. In public. You’re afraid I’ll make a scene so we’re going to a public place. Is that it? If we were dating, you’d be breaking up with me. Are you breaking up with me? Are you firing me?”
Damn her. He was primed to fuel his don’t-be-friends-with-my-daughters speech with a good dose of leftover anger, but she disarmed him with her silly assumption and manic delivery. “No. I wanted to make sure the kids wouldn’t hear us, and I like to go into town. I’m not firing you. Anyway, do you think I would fire you? I’d make Jacqueline do it.”
They sat across from each other in a booth in the almost entirely white restaurant. It had white marble floors and a long white marble counter, white marble walls, and white marble-topped tables with white wrought-iron legs. It was like being inside a sugar cube. The place resembled an ice cream parlor circa 1930 except for the phalanx of white candles on the counter and at each table. The myriad flames bathed everything in a soft, golden light. It was, unfortunately, romanti
c. To assure Amanda that the seductive atmosphere was a surprise to him, he said, “I’ve never seen candles here—they don’t have them during the day.”
“Probably afraid the children will combust.”
They ordered and made stilted small talk. Tension hung in the air, layered with the rich scents of caramel, chocolate, and melting wax. The waitress placed their selections in front of them: for Grady, a hot fudge sundae in a tall sundae glass; for Amanda, a little something called the Mountain Man Belly Buster, a colorful conglomeration of ice cream, bananas, strawberries, peanuts, pecans, candied walnuts, hot fudge, hot butterscotch, whipped cream, and a cherry, all resting atop a giant brownie. It came in what looked like a small glass dinghy. Grady stared at the dish, giving his expression an extra dose of incredulity.
“I haven’t eaten since noon, and then I just had popcorn,” she said. She ate a spoonful. He continued to stare. “What?”
“I never realized there was that much ice cream in the world.” She laughed, and he was pleased at her reaction.
As he tucked into his sundae, Grady sneaked glances at Amanda as she strip-mined her ice cream. His eyes skimmed over her face, taking in her lips as she slid the spoon into her mouth, and her sweater, which looked absolutely cozy as it draped over her breasts. He’d never noticed before, but her mouth was a touch wide for her face. But it worked—as did the spray of pale freckles across her nose. He had never noticed those before, either. Why was he looking at her like that? Damn candlelight.
After she had made a tiny dent in her ice cream acreage, he spoke. “I want to talk to you about this afternoon. I’m . . . concerned that you put my kids at risk today.”
“At risk? Kind of strong, don’t you think?” She asked this while negotiating a large spoonful of chocolate, so it came out somewhat garbled.
“My daughter had to go to the hospital because of you.”
Amanda looked at him. Unfortunately for Grady, that meant he had to look at her eyes, which were wide and illuminated by the flame at their table. He wouldn’t get sucked in. He would focus on the topic, not on those eyes.
“You’re right. It was my idea. But you have to understand, I used to make courses like that all the time when I was their age.”
“Solstice sprained her ankle because of your game and your cat.”
“She could have done that running down the stairs in your house. I’m not saying it’s not my fault, but the risk was pretty low. I hope you know I’d never, never take unreasonable risks with your children. Safety is my main concern—if it weren’t, I never would have bothered getting new horses for them, I would have kept the ones you bought.”
“Solstice got hurt.”
“Yes. And I’m sorry about that, I feel terrible about that, but it wasn’t something I could’ve prevented. Think of the positives—your girls weren’t inside playing a video game, they were outside getting exercise, playing instead of fighting, using their imaginations, and they did something they enjoyed so much, that they were so excited about, they wanted to show you.” She continued to work on the Belly Buster.
Grady was silent for a long while and Amanda finally looked up at him.
“You’re right,” he said quietly. “It wasn’t dangerous. I was just . . . scared when she fell.”
“Of course you were,” she said gently. “Watching your child get hurt is awful. But I promise, I do everything I can to keep them safe. I worry about them, too, you know.”
“Yeah. But there’s something else.” He studied how the light played through the thick glass of his empty sundae glass, then looked at her. He spoke softly, and she leaned toward him. “I’m afraid they’re getting too close to you. That bit about Solstice saying you were her friend.”
She put down her spoon carefully, as though it might shatter.
Grady held his palms toward her as if stopping traffic. “Now, don’t get upset. I don’t mean it how it sounds.” He put his hands in his lap. “They really like you.”
“She was in shock—” Amanda began, but Grady interrupted, shaking his head.
“You don’t get it. They never like anyone I hire for them. They like you.” His voice was low and quiet. “I’m afraid that when you leave, they’ll get hurt.”
Amanda looked around the restaurant. Fluttered the fingers on one hand in a helpless gesture. “I don’t know what to do about that. The truth is, I like them, too.”
“I know. You’re so easy with them.” A minuscule surge of jealousy coiled in his center.
“Anyway, they know I’m leaving in September.”
“They’re kids. They don’t think like that. They don’t plan.”
“You’re not giving them enough credit.”
The jealousy got a smidgen stronger because he suspected she knew his girls better than he did.
“They lost their mother. I won’t put them through that again.”
“I’m not their mother,” she said matter-of-factly. “And you can’t wrap them in bubble wrap. If you don’t want them to get hurt, they can never get close to anyone, and that’s no way to live.”
“I just don’t want them to get close to someone who’s going to leave.”
She sighed. “You sound like those people who won’t get a dog because it’ll die someday—like Blackie. So they sacrifice ten, fifteen years of love because of it.” She looked toward the counter and shook her head. “And it’s none of my business, but I think you’re wrong.” She looked back at him and placed her palms on the marble tabletop, leaning closer to him. “Grady . . . life is messy.”
“Like I said, I don’t want them to get hurt.”
“Because you’re a good father.”
He smiled what he knew was a crooked smile. “So now I’m a good father?” He couldn’t resist.
She opened her mouth and rolled her eyes, and her cheeks reddened. “Yes. I’m sorry about that, too. And can we stop beating that dead horse? I was high, okay?”
Grady smiled, then his expression sobered and he tilted his head as a new thought occurred to him. “What happened to you today when you looked like you were going to faint?”
“Oh. Uh. Just . . . uh . . .” Amanda shifted in her seat. She looked at the counter, which glowed with dozens of candles, as she spoke. “I had something happen earlier this year and Solstice falling reminded me of it. No big deal, but it . . . threw me for a minute.”
He knew it was a big deal or she wouldn’t have avoided eye contact so thoroughly. He had this crazy urge to hold her so she’d feel safe enough to tell him whatever it was.
She met his eyes, but he could see it took effort. “A friend had a bad fall during a show, and I guess seeing Solstice on the ground brought it all back. I freaked out a little.”
“You looked like you were in shock.”
“It won’t happen again.”
“Amanda, I’m not questioning your competence,” he said as gently as he could. “I’m asking if you’re all right.”
Her eyes went wide. “Oh. Yes. I’m fine. I’m perfectly fine.” She smiled perfunctorily.
He didn’t believe her for a minute because pain and sadness flickered in her eyes. To his surprise, he wanted badly to cross to her, fold her in his arms, and kiss that pain away.
The next morning, as usual, Amanda woke at exactly six a.m. She stretched in bed and remembered that the new farrier was coming today. She had gotten a name of the “best shoer in the county” from the owner of the feed store.
As she fed the horses and cleaned stalls, she revisited the previous night. Grady had opened up to her about his fears—a first—and she had told him about her flashback. It was an intense few minutes, and she’d felt almost as though they were lovers. Almost.
“Oh well,” she sighed to Smooch as she reflected how she and Grady would never sleep together. “At least I think I helped him last night, right?” she asked as she scratched Smooch’s neck. And the only reason she thought about sleeping with her boss was because it had been a hundred years since
she’d had sex, or even kissed anyone. All she had to do was get out there and date, and Grady wouldn’t be an issue. He’d merely be this amazing-looking movie star she happened to work for.
The amazing-looking movie star also woke at six a.m., which was early for him. He was wide-awake though, recovering from a dream that had starred his children’s riding instructor. It had been a great dream, a calorie-burning dream, a dream that counted at least in part as cardio, but one he could never describe to his children. Or their riding instructor. At least . . . not yet.
Around noon, Luke McCabe arrived in a big silver dually diesel pickup customized to carry farrier equipment, and parked near the entrance to the barn. Amanda introduced herself, shook his hand, and told him to set up in the entryway.
“Mind if my assistant Lena joins me?” He nodded at the border collie sitting in the passenger seat, ears perked. He had a low, soft voice with a shadow of a drawl.
“Not at all. If she’s okay with cats.”
“Yep.” He whistled softly and Lena bounced across the seat and out of the truck. She immediately curled up next to the wall and Amanda crouched to pet her. From her vantage point, she checked out the new farrier, who was straight out of central casting for Rugged Cowboy. He was six feet, two inches, his muscles hard from years of shoeing, his movements graceful as a mountain lion’s. He was broader than Grady, more burly, and she mentally poked herself in the eye for comparing. Grady’s looks were none of her concern. Luke’s, however, were.
Luke set a wheeled metal caddy loaded with nails, a nail puller, hoof trimmer, and other tools on the floor. He strapped on a leather apron and fired up the roaring, mailbox-sized forge on the side of his truck. He set a hoof stand on the floor and filled a metal bucket with water. Amanda got Rainy for him, holding her lead rope instead of clipping her to crossties in case the mare acted up. While Luke bent over a hoof with his back to her, Amanda was rewarded with a view of a pinch-worthy butt, framed by his apron. He wore a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and she caught glimpses of his tan forearms flexing. Not bad.
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